Book 8. Chapter 88: Arrival |
The wind blew behind me, flicking snow and ice trailing past my armor's legplates, as if trying to push me forward to what lay beyond the last portal made by the Icon.
Far ahead, through the small portal, was a single black mark at the very center of the gentle slope downwards, surrounded by nothing but the white wastes.
Walls on walls had been built, turrets and weapons, even a few actual towers. It was a mix of completely impractical, imposing, and yet functional. Everything the machines were.
The final stronghold of their kind. A monument built three miles ahead. Swarming with machines, like an anthill. Hundreds of thousands of them moving in and out. Perhaps closer to half a million.
Somehow, it felt like it would always end this way.
I stepped forward through the portal, ice crunching under my boots. The first blade of that unknown clan walked behind me, wordlessly joining a final fight that would likely see him dead. Soldiers and heroes all across the world were doing the same as he had.
The retainers with environmental suits remained behind, knowing they lacked the relic armor needed for this final moment.
The last I saw of them before the portal closed behind me, they had turned and raced off back to their airspeeder. Likely on a final set of orders handed down by the Icon. Perhaps those orders were as simple as simply surviving what comes next. That the war was over for them now, there was nothing else they could do besides pray the last plans of their gods worked and the darkness ahead of me was burned away from the world.
I don’t know what would happen to the Icon.
We had to throw everything we could at it.
Besides the somber sight ahead of me, the second sense I noticed was the sound. Hundreds of footsteps, crunching through the same untouched snow for the first time. Following behind me.
Silently, without words, Lord Atius marched into the side of my sight and took a position to my far right. Shadowsong trailed him, giving me a clan salute before he turned to stare down at the final target.
Winterscar knights appeared on my left, walking out of their own portals, led by none other than the Lady Winterscar Prime herself, the armor fitting my sister perfectly. She had no hesitation to her steps, just like every other clan knight following behind.
Drakonis stepped through his own portal several paces away from us, swearing and cursing. The portal he’d just walked out of had explosions and sounds of combat. He seemed more distracted about what he was leaving behind until the harsh wind of the surface forced him to look up and see what was ahead. “Oh fuck, it’s already happening?”
Lionheart stepped behind him, his own portal fading away behind. One hand reached out, grabbed the new Deathless’s shoulder, shaking it like a comrade.
Drakonis sniffed, rubbed his nose from the cold around, turned to speak, and grew quiet as he saw what was behind us.
Portals like his own were spawning everywhere. Hundreds of thousands, relic knights from all different eras and worlds stepping through. Deathless, Undersiders, Clan Knights, Pirates, Imperials.
Everyone the Icon could bring was being brought. I'd just been sent to the very front of the army.
Around my position in particular, portals were being spawned to old friends. Captain Sagrius rejoined us, marching up to take a position near the Winterscars and myself. Clan Altosk was almost completely accounted for, forming a large semicircle behind me.
This was the Icon’s last gift in a way, to send everyone I knew directly to my position.
I could tell she’d done the same to all the others here. Different clans, chapters, cities, even Deathless teams and warlocks.
Imperials from Cathida's old chapter arrived in formation past Clan Altosk. One had even walked through the portal with a massive flag banner, lifted high up the moment he'd cleared the path.
He wasn't the only one with banners. There were hundreds of different flag bearers out here, all carrying different colors, shapes and history. Imperial chapters, houses of clans, undersider cities.
Humanity had arrived in full.
Hundreds of them were already gravitating to one another, hands clasping long lost friends. People who hadn’t seen each other in months, maybe even decades.
All around half the rim of this crater just slightly behind our position, gold lights were flickering in and out as the final portals the Icon could manifest were fading off. Everyone who could fight was here. Thousands of us. Hundreds of thousands even.
There must have been thousands still mid-way through a fight and unable to jump through a portal spawned in a last-second moment. I could tell quite a few portals simply had nobody walk through, or were cut in half before the intended reinforcements could use them. Anything could have happened to the soldiers there.
If we had had more time, she could have prepared better for this moment.
Given her constraints, the Icon had managed to bring this many all together here anyhow. And now she wouldn't be able to bring even a single person more. This was it.
I turned my gaze back to the fortress below that had already started to churn with activity.
They could see us already, gathering up like an ancient army on the plains, about to charge down to fight blade to blade.
They had weapons of mass destruction, ranged artillery, missiles built to tear down the oldest fortress of the golden age orbiting far above. And I knew Relinquished couldn’t use any of it.
No, she had to meet a doomed charge like this with a counter charge of her own. The final fight would be one fought with swords and occult.
Almost as if in silent agreement to exactly that, I saw purple banners being lifted by the machines, showing a silver crown surrounding a world. She wasn't subtle with her message, and the banner repeated all across the citadel.
A message to us all. We were divided into hundreds of different cultures, casts, families, cities, and millions of individual lives.
She was undivided. There were no other banners she flew besides her own.
The machine army was staring out at us from the walls, half a million blinking lights of violet, swarming to the sides of the walls. Waiting. As if the enemy was holding their breath just as we were.
Somewhere deep down, Relinquished was watching this moment given the response. Knowing I would walk forward soon and demand her to reveal herself before all of humanity.
And she would not go quietly.
I knew Talen couldn’t fight Relinquished at his strongest in the digital ocean. Soul to soul, Relinquished was a monster with a planet’s worth of power behind her, exactly as her banner displayed. The occult was something she bent around her hands like a whip.
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The digital sea was half occult - but reality here wasn’t.
I had the advantage in this world. In Talen’s memories, I could see Urs, Tsuya and him discuss and debate how to fight the goddess when they drew her out. They’d come to a probable timeline: After a half hour, he didn’t expect to be able to keep fighting. They expected her to be stronger than A01, by a significant amount. The chassis would likely be only slightly improved compared to the original protofeather, but the occult power she could command would be the difference.
They’d never even gotten the chance to see her true form, or fight against her in the physical world. Relinquished had managed to move and weave through that danger perfectly, so that it never even came to pass. And even if they had, they knew they'd only match against her for a half hour at best.
If she came out swinging right here and now, I might be locked into a fight for hours.
Normally, this should have freaked me out.
But there wasn’t a tinge of fear in me at all. In fact, I welcomed the extra time.
We got this. Superior sent to me. We managed to hold off Talen soul to soul throwing a few hundred souls into the grinder against him, with her, we’ll throw as many of us as we need to.
It only took one single dimension to succeed. I was willing to sacrifice everything to make sure we got that one win.
While the rest of humanity gave me a wide berth, Kidra strolled up to my side without a shred of hesitation, marching to match Lord Atius standing silently on my other side.
I brought my finger up and drew the hand sign for a smile on my helmet as she came up.
She rolled her eyes at me, her helmet making the familiar motion. But she still came to a stop next to me. “How are you holding up?”
I gave a shrug, “Same old, same old. Another day at the office.”
She looked far off, to where the final citadel of the machines remained. “The office has an infestation issue.”
“Yeah. But I’m not worried for them. They should be worried about me.”
“...How are you really feeling? The Icon explained what you’d gone through, I had to see it for myself. Are you still… you?”
“Dear sister, becoming the emperor of mankind and consuming the knowledge of two entire gods doesn’t just magically change me into more of a charismatic mastermind. But I am going to ask for a pretty hefty raise after all this is done, and I expect the good ration bars. The strawberry ones.”
She returned that with her own handsign for a smile, relief in every motion. “Thank the gods. It’s still you in there.”
“Funny you should mention them.” I laughed, “That wording’s going to need a bit of an update after all this.”
She shook her head, exasperated. “And what’s actually going through your head? I know how you deflect.”
“... I have to go beat up the mother of all toasters. Long story, but she sucks and I don't like her.”
“Keith.”
I groaned. “Okay. So, I might have fallen for her daughter, and it’s going to be a little awkward when I have to beat her down into a pulp. But in my defense, Wrath hates her mom and I do too, so it’s completely deserved.”
Kidra gave me a long look. “Gods, looks like you finally wised up to it.”
“As I’m getting informed by Cathida of all people, it seems like everyone else in the world figured it out before I did! Why didn’t any of you even tell me?”
“Would you have believed any of us?”
“Not for a second. I would have thought it too good to be true. Plus, she was going down the whole pretend angle with Relinquished, and it’s... complicated. It’ll be a lot less complicated after I’m done here.”
She walked closer to me and grabbed my shoulder, her voice more serious. “Keith. I know what you're planning here."
"I mean, I don't think I'm being exactly subtle. Was it the sword at my belt that tipped you off, or the entire army of humanity behind us?"
"You can’t charge in there right now.”
I froze. “What do you mean? Of course I need to.”
“No. You need to buy time for Wrath to move the station above. The longer we delay the fight here, the more time she has. We were forced out here early. Normally, the fortress should already be above us in geostationary orbit and ready to fire down. You would be facing Relinquished for only minutes.”
I recoiled back from her touch. “It’s fine, I’ll be fighting her with a goal to stall.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
I could feel panic start to come up. “What do you mean? We're just adapting to the plan here.”
“No. You want to charge in there because you want to kill Relinquished yourself.”
I didn’t answer her for a moment. Stunned. And upset. Then I turned around and looked at the gathered group around me. Lord Atius silently watched me, now the gaze felt more like judgement. A backup to Kidra. And Shadowsong next to him, along with Ironreach. All of them watching.
It felt like a trap.
“Did the Icon send all of you here to harass me about this? Seriously?”
Lord Atius gave a sad smile in the subfreezing wind, ice already forming on his beard. “The little lass knews you would not endanger the entire world like this lad, but it helps a whole lot more to have others here telling you what you are already telling yourself.”
I closed my eyes and tried to let the rage flow out of me.
Because I had been thinking exactly that.
The prophecy was humanity’s plan.
My plan was to rip her soul apart myself.
If I killed her first, Wrath would never need to sacrifice herself in the first place. And if I went out there and fought her right now, I would be risking all of humanity to do it.
They were right. I knew it deep down. I wanted to fight Relinquished and all of this extra time I had was an opportunity. Because every result of that fight worked for me.
If I won, Wrath would live.
And if I died before Wrath was in position, the goddess would absolutely flee as quickly as she could while crowing victory over humanity. I could be back to the surface within two minutes of returning to life however the Deathless did, and it wouldn't work.
I wouldn't even be able to drag her back to the surface even with all of this around me.
She would absolutely spout some garbage about having defeated me with ease, and how I should try again in ten years when I’ve grown into an actual challenge. Or something in that vein.
She’d never come back up. And Wrath would never need to die either.
The best I could do for Wrath would be to attack right here, and right now. Win or lose, she survived.
The best I could do for humanity and the entire world, is to wait for as long as I could, so that I wouldn’t need to gamble on how long I could last against the goddess of all machine kind, and for Wrath to do her part and die for the cause.
When Relinquished came out, she wouldn’t even have the time to monologue at me before Wrath slammed into her from orbit, and the fortress ripped the entire land apart a moment later.
Humanity depended on me to not be selfish.
“When sacrifice calls, I shall answer it.” Lord Atius spoke, old eyes watching the citadel ahead. “The vow of all Retainers. I’ve lived a long time lad. I’ve found that sacrifice means many things. Not always a call to die yourself.”
I kept my eyes shut, feeling some deep part of me break down. “I know.” The words were hoarse. “I know.”
I couldn’t even rush in and save Wrath myself using my own immortality. She would be holding Relinquished directly within her soul fractal, off within the prison she’d made. I can’t snatch her out of there myself, or stuff her into another soul fractal even if I had the ability to. She’d lose her hold over Relinquished and the goddess would slip away in an instant. There wasn’t another way.
“What would Wrath want?” Kidra softly asked. “Ignore the world for a moment, brother. Be true to her.”
What would Wrath want?
“She’d want me to stay here and buy time." I said, and I knew it to be true in my heart. "She’d want the world saved. She’d want not just me, but everyone else she’s ever met and known to be saved.”
I thought of Yrob, Tammery, and all the others Wrath had met and befriended. She’d had an entire city’s worth of people she cared about. This was her life’s work. And I’d be condemning it all to death just to keep her alive for myself.
She would never forgive me.
There wasn’t any other choice but to follow through and do what I could. All around, I could feel the gaze of humanity looking at me. Done welcoming one another, now turning their sights to the final battle ahead.
And to the Emperor at the very front, standing before the citadel.
They couldn't hear what I was speaking of, only see me in the distance staring down at the citadel ahead, surrounding by knights and Deathless who'd earned the right to be there.
The army of mankind was waiting for me to lift Talen’s sword up, and command them to charge forward. They would if I did it now. And they would if I waited for the proper moment.
They’d put their entire faith in me, that I would give the order at the right time.
“I…” Old words floated to mind, spoken half a lifetime ago.
When I was facing off against one spider that had hunted me down. That had killed Father. That was going to kill me too.
The very same spider I now desperately wanted to save.
I had stood my ground that day and decided my own fate.
That I would rise instead of run.
I remember the words I'd spoken. The oath I'd made to myself and to the gods.
Where was that man now?
“I am... Keith Winterscar, Relic Knight of House Winterscar." I closed my eyes and breathed out the words one more time so that the world could hear and remember, almost in a whisper to myself. "And I will honor my vow.”
Far ahead, the citadel rumbled as if in answer. A voice came through all our comms, a public broadcast.
“How touching…" The gates before the citadel began to creak open. "You've saved me such tedious effort of hunting you all down one kingdom at a time, gathering yourselves like this all for me. How considerate. How... convenient."
I realized there was one other person in the entire world who would benefit most from Wrath not being killed.
Relinquished herself.
She’d seen us assembled. And she’d seen that Wrath hadn’t made it to the station yet. That our plan was in disarray. And that I wasn't going to come after her early.
Because I had a mandate to stay back and buy humanity time.
She had no such reserve.