Book 8 – Chapter 48 – Homecoming

Aurion zoomed in his helmet’s vision, replaying the footage they’d just captured a minute ago. The other scouts behind him remained in cover, waiting for his call. Likely praying to the golden goddess herself that these clan knights passing far under them weren’t walking hand to hand with who’d they thought they’d spotted.

But they couldn’t be certain, not until he confirmed it as the captain of the squad.

The marble white features, the dead-set look of disgust, the inhuman way they walked too casually.

A Feather. He’d been in three engagements that had seen their ilk, and by far he was the luckiest man alive to have survived that many as a mere mortal.

But he’d never seen them run before. They’d never needed to.

Seeing this many of them, sprinting at full speed within gunshot distance, was freaking him out. And he couldn’t let the rest of the scouts here know, the poor squires needed someone who appeared to have it together.

“Captain?” One of the scouts asked, while he returned back to cover, hiding from sight. “Is it confirmed?”

They were trapped here for now until the wind passed. Stepping outside the safezone would be death, it didn’t matter if human, machine or even a Feather.

The team here already knew who it was they’d spotted. The captain couldn’t hide it for long. Not with what came next. He gave them a shallow nod. “They are Feathers. Nine of them.”

There was a collective hold of breath.

And then the idiot in the group asked the obvious. “Are… are they really as bad as everyone says? Maybe we could still take them.”

“Cassius.” Aurion said in the most no-nonsense tone he could muster. This squire really was the thickest one under his command. “A single one regularly kills Deathless teams. Not one Deathless. Teams. This is the reason most Deathless end up back in the fortress to recover, their runs are ended by those things.”

One of those teams was healing up right this moment at Perseverance, resupplying and preparing to return back into the fray. The other one was taking a breather before they’d leave.

At least the idiot didn’t say another word, helmet nodding glumly.

“But the surface knights with them.” Atticus asked from the right. “What are they doing down here? Three entire stratas under the surface? Surface knights don’t travel that deep, there’s no reason to. How did they even get this far down?”

“Did you not notice they’re running with Feathers, soldier?” Aurion snapped back. “Machines can easily allow any of them to travel anywhere they damn well please if the silver traitors are working with the enemy now. They came here for a reason.”

“Surface humans working with the enemy…” Atticus shook his head. “Never thought they’d go that low.”

“They’ll do anything for their clans.” Julia said from the left, frustrated. She turned her head and peeked over the ridge, watching the distant group of enemies take cover from the wind, far under the group. “And who better to hunt down humans than them, really? They’re quite literally trained from infancy to kill other knights. Of course the machines would naturally ally with them. More surprised it hasn’t happened till now.”

“Julia, pilgrims visit them constantly. They’re not that bad.” Cassius said, holding his rifle a little closer for comfort. “At least most of them? Maybe this was a feral clan we don’t have ties to. Like renegades too remote for airspeeder travel.”

“Cut chatter, wind’s ending in thirty seconds.” Aurion said with finality to this discussion. “They might be delusional enough to think the violet goddess isn’t going to stab them in the back the moment they’re no longer needed. Delusional, but they’re all still extremely dangerous. A single surface knight can only be brought down by an Imperator, or three fully trained crusaders of at least the fourth oath. Let alone scout squires like you lot. Not only do the knights among that group outnumber us, the Feathers are in a different league entirely. We report back to Perseverance, and make sure the alert is full on. The rest of the fortress will handle this threat. We do our duty to the golden goddess and the empire itself above all. Julia, good work on following your hunch here, goddess guide us back to safety after this.”

But Aurion also knew the danger. The group racing down right in their own territory represented an insane amount of firepower, all concentrated in a tiny amount of soldiers. This wasn’t an excursion force, it was an invasion force dedicated to breaking down the fortress.

That they’d gotten here without alerting any other scouts or watchtowers further up ahead meant they’d traveled by portal directly, likely one of the dark ones that nobody had yet managed to trigger.

There were hundreds of them scattered across this land of thin metal bridges, turbines and those strings. It was both an advantage and disadvantage.

Larger machines wouldn’t get through. Flying ones would get caught in those strings. But it also caused the entire place to be more of a maze than anything.

And every rocky safezone here had a fifty fifty chance of having a portal under it. The partially floating rock platform they hid within had a staircase drilling downwards, leading to a silent gate already.

It made Perseverance a perfect nexus, an easy expedition point to depart from on the goddess’s missions whenever those portals turned on or off by the Imperial mitespeakers.

But surface knights following with these Feathers was no coincidence. They didn’t stumble on each other in one of the portals within that area. He knew exactly why the Feathers had brought the surface knights for: The pillar heart.

The heart at the fortress was still active and it wouldn’t be scheduled to go down for another three days. So long as that remained online, no machines could breach.

So the Feathers wouldn’t send machines to break the heart. They’d send humans. And the most deadly humans in the world that were equally as likely to work with the enemy were surface knights.

The nine Fathers would remain outside and draw the full force of the fortress out, while the infiltration team of surface knights would break through to the pillar heart and sabotage it. From there, the Feathers would handle the rest.

Nine wasn’t an oddity. It would be enough to break the fortress open. He’d never seen more than a single one at a time. The greatest Deathless fireteams had to deal with two at most working together. Nine meant the violet goddess was not taking failure as an answer.

They might not know how many Deathless teams were currently resting or resupplying at the fortress, hence they sent enough Feathers to handle any amount of Deathless.

As for why now? And why the need for surface knights? There was only one answer: They didn’t have time to wait three days. The machines were mobilizing already. Reports of them all leaving their territory, heading up to the surface en-mass. Giving up even strategic locations such as the mite forges, completely exposing them for imperial access.

The fortress was on high alert as it was, fully abusing the situation already to reach the more powerful unguarded mite forges – but seeing a Feather kill-team bringing humans along was a desperate measure and meant there was a timing issue to all this.

Whatever the machines were doing, it had to happen right now.

“Ten seconds until the wind clears sir.” Cassius said.

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They’d get another two minutes before the wind flooded the region like a rising sea again, strong enough to pick up a knight up and off the bridges if they weren’t holding down onto something more sturdy.

Off the bridges and directly into the arms of those deadly strings this biome was famous for.

“Get to the comm relays,” Aurion ordered. “That’s our only goal now. The earlier Perseverance knows of their approach the better. Stay low, and make sure the enemy don’t spot us.”

Their armor’s comms range was too far from the fortress. The scout signal relays would pass the message along from relay to relay all the way back home. They only needed to make it to the outpost rock.

His HUD counted down a few more seconds, and just as suddenly as it had started, the storm and howling wind instantly died off.

The team bolted into action.