The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (28 page)

“I needed you to lead my people to your city!” my
father curses her rescue as she drops into our poor fortification.
The Boxes express their frustration by peppering our position.

“I gave Sarai a note for my father to give you safe
haven,” she tells us. “I am not leaving you to hold this line
against the butcher-machines.” Then she looks at me, and actually
seems relieved that I’m here and intact. But then she frowns, her
brow knitted like she’s having trouble finding words. “I am sorry
about your mother,” she tells me heavily.

I feel a sinking in my gut and catch my father
looking at me with fresh pain in his eyes. I want to ask him what
she means, I want him to say the words or deny them, but we have
more pressing necessities:

Terina has indeed brought us more ammo, grenades,
even oxygen. But I expect the donation has left our main group with
very little to defend themselves with. Now we
can’t
let the
machines get past us.

I toss ammo and oxygen to Murphy. He sends some along
to the Ghaddar, and to Hamad and Rashid. My father throws some to
Zayed on our right flank. Zayed passes a pack to Ali, but falls
short. I see Ali blown apart as he tries to reach it. A canister
tumbles down the slope, sprayed with his blood.

We reload and wait for opportunity to avenge him.

We’ve been fighting for nearly two hours.

Four of the five Boxes remain intact enough to be
deadly despite our best efforts.

Zayed has been hit. He’s slumped behind his boulder.
He still moves, but can’t fight.

Despite Terina’s other skills—including having an
exceptional throw—she has no experience with firearms, and the
Boxes haven’t…

In my periphery, I see Murphy gesturing for us to
look. He’s pointing high, across the bowl. I risk a careful look.
Up on the opposite crest are three figures, looking down into the
bowl. One is wearing an Unmaker uniform, but is carrying a
broadsword instead of a gun. The other two are wearing partial
plate over what may be red Jinn sealsuits—one has long dark hair,
the other long white—and also carry swords. They stand out in the
open as if they don’t understand the threat of the Boxes, or don’t
care. More immortals? And are they heroes, or do these belong to
Chang?

I’m expecting the latter is the case as the
black-hair comes running at us across the slopes of the slide, as
if flanking us. But then two of the Boxes devote a gun each to
trying to shoot him. He proves too fast to hit. His two companions
then charge directly into the bowl at the Boxes.

The two get more than halfway to their targets before
the Boxes spin guns on them and open fire…

…and I don’t believe what I see: They raise their
swords in front of them, and the gunfire blazes straight into the
blades as if drawn by a magnet. It slows the runners down, like a
man running into a severe storm, but the bullets all burst and
dissolve in a bright arcing as they strike the blades—it looks like
some kind of welder’s arc.

I look to our flank, up-slope. The dark-hair isn’t
running toward us, he’s headed
above
us, and I realize he’s
intercepting…
Chang
. Chang is coming down the mountain at
us, crawling and oozing down the rocks in his liquid form… I point
him out to my fellows, but our attention is divided…

Down in the bowl, the Boxes have either overheated or
run dry trying to sustain fire against their new attackers. They
hesitate…

The Unmaker and the White Hair close and begin
hacking and stabbing. One swipe of their blades cleaves guns like
plastic tubing. One thrust goes deep between sections, producing
more arc-flare. The Boxes jerk and go dead, smoking. The two
swordsmen move on to their next targets.

Up the mountain, the black-hair has chased down
Chang, and is hacking as tentacles lash out to meet him. Each cut
seems to whittle at the mass of blackness, the severed bits
crumbling to what looks like black sand.

I finally realize that the black-haired swordsman is
Erickson
. But his hair has grown long, his armor is
different, and that certainly isn’t the same sword he’d been
carrying.

Chang flips bodily into him, slamming him down the
slope, and pursuing.

The other swordsmen have finished off the Boxes.

Erickson finds his footing, and hacks at the oncoming
Chang, taking him apart piece-by-piece. Erickson is moving faster
than I’ve ever seen him—as fast as an immortal—and with far more
skill than he’s shown before. And Chang isn’t reforming. Erickson
is hurting him, perhaps killing him.

Their fight brings the talus down, sliding out from
under them. They manage to ride it halfway down into the bowl, then
resume their slashing dance.

The other two go to help, but almost casually, like
they’re in no hurry.

All we can do is watch, digging ourselves out of our
holes, as the three swordsmen surround the black mass and begin
butchering it, hacking and stabbing like each blow is pure
pleasure. I hear a deep resonant screaming that I think is Chang,
but from the way the tones flux with every swing, I realize it’s
coming from the swords. Soon the three are standing around what
looks like crumbling black sand.

Is Chang dead?

Azazel has come up from behind his rock, and stands
staring at the trio. Lux is still in no shape to move.

“
ERICKSON!!
” I shout across the slope. He
turns to us. He seems dazed. So do the others. He starts to hike
over to us, sword still drawn, hung low at his side. His armor has
changed, as if remade. His sealsuit also looks new. And he’s
wearing strange new boots. And his hair…

“Are you all right?” he yells to us, looking over our
remaining numbers. I’m not sure how to answer, so my father
does:

“We’ve lost many, but we can fight.” And he sounds
like he’s spoiling for another fight. Angry. Bitter. Hard.

“You may need to,” Azazel calls up to us, urgent.
“More machines are on the way!”

The three sword-wielders turn to the west as one.
They look like they can see something far away, well beyond the
ridge.

“The rest of you need to go!” Erickson insists. “We
can hold them here!”

“No, we
can’t
,” Azazel insists. “The machines
will ignore us, avoid us, go for the vulnerable flesh. We won’t be
able to stop them all. That’s how this game works. Chang’s not
going to engage us directly. He’s going to keep drawing us away
from him. That’s how it’s been for
months
: He keeps us
running, keeps us fighting, doesn’t give us time to recover. The
one opening we thought we had turned out to be a trap. And we
walked right into it because we were so tired, so desperate.”

“It’s not Chang,” Erickson tells him. “It’s the other
one. Asmodeus. And Fohat. Chang never came back from the bomb.”

“Then what was
that
?” I blurt out, pointing to
the disintegrated black mass.

“Boogie,” Erickson names it. “Another machine.”

“Nano-swarm,” Azazel knows. “Same tech that made up
Thom Bly’s old ride. It can be any shape it’s programmed for. Or in
this case, none. Just something to stab and smash and slash.
Impervious to conventional weapons.” Then to Erickson: “I’d ask you
where you got those swords, but we’re out of chat time.”

I can hear the grinding of Box treads, coming from
the west. My father falls back behind cover, ready to fire whatever
we have left.

“We can’t hold here,” I try for reason. “They’ll run
through us. Chase down our people.”

He doesn’t acknowledge me, eyes glued to the far
crest. He doesn’t want to run.

“You can’t fall back, either,” Azazel warns. “They’ll
just follow you back to your main group.”

“Then we draw them away,” my father decides, rising
to his feet.

“They’ll slaughter you on the run,” Lux protests
weakly.

“Not if you slaughter them first.”

“I’m out,” Lux groans. “I need to heal. I can’t
move.”

“And I can’t run,” Azazel admits heavily. “We need
resources.”

“Then we’ll do it,” the Unmaker—a redheaded
woman—insists.

“Colonel Ram and the rest of you are nearby,”
Erickson tells Azazel. “Some of the bots went north. They may have
chased after.”

“Bly’s here, too,” the Unmaker adds. “Also headed
north. But he’s in bad shape.”

“Go!” my father is already ordering us, waving us
north and down into the green. “
GO!!
”

No one of us hesitates, not even Terina—she must know
that any bot force chasing us would find her home next. Lux and
Azazel pledge to take care of our wounded—Zayed, who has a bad
chest wound, and Hamad, who’s taken shrapnel to his eyes—and bring
them and our dead back to our people as soon as they’re strong
enough to travel. That leaves only myself, my father, Ambassador
Murphy, the Ghaddar, Rashid and Terina. We gather what we have
left, leave Zayed and Hamad in the care of Lux and Azazel, and
run.

The sword-wielders pace us initially, then fall back
as if to cover our rear as we all weave through the green. Terina’s
taken the lead, finding us a path of least-delay. But we have to
run single-file to follow her, and we can’t spread out as far as we
should for fear of getting lost from the group.

I’m not happy to be back in the tall growth, but as
long as Terina can keep us moving, we may be able to stay ahead of
the bots. I assume the plan is for our protectors to use whatever
disadvantage the forest density inflicts to neutralize the machines
as they pursue, and hopefully before they manage to target us. But
what we don’t know is how many bots Chang (Asmodeus?) has to throw
at us. How long and how far do we have to run?

I’m questioning whether the bots are even following
us (or have they gone after our main group, now left nearly
disarmed after Terina’s delivery?) when I hear the rattle of a Box
gun behind us, cut short by the distinctive scream of one of those
swords. We don’t stop running.

Within two minutes, I hear another Gatling spray.
Bullets slice through the air and the green around us, but it’s
stray fire, not directed. Another sword-song stops it. I try to
guess how far they are behind us, but the thick growth muffles
sound.

I need to concentrate on the running.

And I’m lost in that—weaving between trees, hopping
ground vines, ducking branches—when I realize that the Ghaddar is
no longer in front of me. But Terina is. And she’s stopped.

I almost run straight into her back, and then my
father almost collides with me. Terina has pulled her sleeve up,
baring her forearm at the green in front of us. I know what it must
mean, but I don’t see anyone in the growth.

“
Run!
” she shouts to the forest. “
Machines!
Run now!!
”

Nothing moves in there. Murphy’s come up on our rear.
He has perhaps a second to realize why we’ve stopped, and then he
grabs me and my father by the shoulders and jerks us down. As I
drop, I reach out for Terina, miss…

A mass of flailing metal comes tearing through the
treetops just over our heads. Terina was fast enough to duck it,
but it doesn’t seem to be aiming for us.
Past
us. Which
means there are better targets ahead…

…or it wants to be in the middle of us. It hits
ground between us and whoever Terina was warning, stands. It looks
like a Bug, but the limb-blades are heavier. I realize they’re
mounted with light guns just as they open fire into the brush.

A volley of arrows answers back. Just as I’m thinking
it’s a pathetic and suicidal gesture, one of the shafts jams in the
works of a limb-gun. Then Murphy rolls sideways and fires, bursting
another gun, and then a sensor head. A bigger gun blows away its
second head from somewhere off to our left—I recognize the boom of
the Ghaddar’s fifty caliber bullpup.

The thing is blind, but still lethal—it flails its
limbs, firing wildly. Rounds tear my cloak and smack me through my
shoulder armor, making my right arm go dead and making me lose my
grip on my rifle as I roll on the vine-covered ground. Everything
is pain and electricity from the side of my neck down to my
fingers. I don’t think the shells penetrated my plates—this thing’s
guns are light, small arms, not the heavy weapons of a Box—but I
don’t have time to check.

Something—someone—comes flying out of the green and
lands on the flailing Bug from behind. The figure is wearing a
green and brown patterned camo suit of some kind, including a hood
and mask that covers his whole face, but no cloak. There’s a bow
and a quiver strapped across his back. He’s hanging on for dear
life as the Bug tries to shake him off, digging into the machine’s
joints with a big stout knife.

The Bug flips and throws him into the undergrowth,
then slashes and stabs at him blindly. He’s drawn his bow and
launches a shaft at close range into a shoulder joint, but barely
slows the thing down. Then a red blur flies and leaps on the bot.
It’s the Ghaddar. She stabs and pries into the Bug’s torso with one
of her heavy throwing spikes, then uses the gap she’s made to wedge
in a charge, letting the machine throw her off before it
explodes.

The bot staggers and collapses. More green suits come
out of the growth, descend on it and start hacking and prying,
tearing it apart like a brutal salvage crew. I see blood and
blackish fluid—the scavenged brain and nervous system of what was
once a human being, “recycled” in Chang’s service, now set
mercifully free.

I think my collar bone is broken. I can’t move my
shoulder.

The trees rustle and crack again, and another of
these “Gun Bugs” comes jumping into our midst. But it’s barely set
its guns before a second blur comes right behind it and cuts it in
half with a welcome scream.

It’s the Unmaker girl. She chops the machine apart,
roaring with rage, her face splattered with other kills. But then,
as she stands over the wreckage and drives her sword into the
cleaved torso, I see the green growth underneath her feet shrivel,
dry, turn brown. It’s doing the same under the body of the bot, at
least the main body that has the sword driven down through it. And
she’s screaming with a sound that I’m not sure is pleasure or
agony.