The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (29 page)

Her eyes are an impossibly bright green, metallic. I
think I see something moving—crawling, weaving—under the skin of
her face. The gore on her skin vanishes, as if absorbed by her
pores.

Her two companions—Erickson and the white-haired
one—come running out of the forest.

“We’ve got more coming…” Erickson sounds winded, but
also invigorated. “Why…?”

The green-suited fighters have surrounded us, bows
drawn.

“We need to go!” Terina insists to the green men.

The one who attacked the Bug and got thrown lowers
his bow. I realize his mask is different from the others: They have
roughly-made faces hammered out of metal and painted to match their
camo, eyes amber-tinted mirrors (probably made from goggle lenses
or helmet visors). His is finely crafted: It looks like an old man
or demon or both; beard, brows and hair made of leaves; grinning.
I’ve seen something like this in old Earth history files, art. He
jerks his head for us to follow him.

I grab up my lost rifle, and we’re running again.

Erickson Carter:

My mind races and reels. I am simultaneously in
control of myself and not.

This dance of violence, with the sword as my intimate
partner, has become a seemingly endless cycle of depletion and
replenishment. I expect it’s the same for my two hapless companions
in this misadventure: We spend ourselves running and jumping and
fighting—stronger and faster and surer than any human body should
be—and then the swords feed us when we score hits, draining energy,
fluids, nutrients, elemental materials… (I remind myself that some
of these robots have parts of still-living human bodies in
them—we’re consuming them as well. The sword makes me not
care.)

But I can’t stop. I tell myself it’s because people
are in danger, my friends. I know that isn’t all. I wonder what the
sword will want when this battle finally ends.

The machines fall easily enough. Their metal is
little resistance to my new “companion”, and the sword somehow
provides an impressively effective shield against bullets, not
unlike a Guardian Sphere (though Sphere fields don’t draw power
from what collides with them). For all the violence I’ve dealt, I’m
physically unscathed. In fact, I’m feeling
stronger
after
every kill I make, despite how quickly my amplified efforts seem to
drain me in between.

Now we’re chasing after something (someone) new,
hopefully friend rather than foe: Mysterious warriors in green
costumes that resemble Shinkyo Shinobi suits, though very hand-made
in appearance. Their masks are hand-hammered metal approximations
of human faces, very much like Mycenaean-era funeral relics from
Earth history. Except for one, their apparent leader: he wears the
relief-sculpt of an ancient European “Green Man”. Their weapons are
primitive but finely crafted: bows, swords, javelins, stout Seax
knives. They wear only light armor: Torso, shoulders, forearms and
shins.

They lead us north and west, pausing for the slower
of our numbers to catch up. This delay results in the occasional
bot catching up to us as well. The three of us take turns
intercepting them like this is some game, sport.

We run for a few kilometers, up and down low rocky
hills that take us briefly up out of the green, giving us glimpses
of the bigger world: The rustle of more bots pursuing us. And smoke
rising with the sound of gunfire from a distance ahead, from a
range of low mountains a fraction the size of the Spine Range.
(Thankfully, I hear and see no sign of battle behind us, from the
slopes we came from. I hope that means all the machines have chosen
to follow us rather than hunt down the rest of Abbas’ people.)

It’s up one of these rises that our new comrades
pause, but not to let us catch up. This time, they silently survey
the apparent battle ahead of us. They only start running again when
bot guns try taking shots at us from range.

I linger long enough to test a theory: I raise my
blade, and in short order the inaccurate long-range fire is coming
straight at it, bursting on whatever field it’s generating, the
kinetic energy feeding the weapon. The blade
is
drawing the
bullets to it.

I don’t want it to stop. I want to go find the bots
and feed properly, feed more. But I have to stay with those I’ve
promised to protect.

The woman—Jak—has already moved on. Elias is waiting
for me, giving me his usual look of disapproval and impatience. But
I can tell: he also wants more of this. None of us has put our
sword away once yet.

Time to run again.

After all: there’s more violence where we’re
going.

As we approach the foothills of the lesser range—what
should be the northern edge of the North Blade, where it’s narrow
at the eastern end—we come across bodies, all in variations of our
guides’ green costumes. Their blood is still fresh, their wounds a
mix of gunshot and more horrific stabs and hacks that were probably
inflicted by Bug bots. The dead include women and children. I see
no sign of wrecked machines.

Our guides pause again, taking in the carnage, but
only for a moment. Then they continue to run.

My sword feeds on my outrage, stokes it.

Within another few hundred meters, the growth begins
to thin as we come up on the slopes. Ahead of us is a narrow
canyon, cut at an angle northwest into the mountain, embraced by
sharp-crested ridges on either side. It’s maybe four hundred meters
wide at the mouth, but it’s been artificially narrowed to about
fifty meters by a rough barrier of boulders, part slide, part wall,
piled up dozens of meters. It’s been there long enough to have been
overgrown with vine and scrub. And approaching this gap we see the
signs of a quantum of revenge: broken bots—smashed, torn apart,
some buried by intentional rockfall where they apparently tried to
take the slopes, others trapped in pits and crushed by toppled
boulders. But there are bodies, too: green warriors like our
guides.

And in the gap itself: active battle. But not the
slaughter I expected.

Colonel Ram is there. And his companions Belial and
Paul Stilson. They hold the narrowed throat of the canyon, standing
in the wreckage of a dozen machines, hacking and shooting and
stabbing half that many more.

Our guides wave us to follow them as they move to
flank the action, climbing the slopes of their barrier to get to
high ground. Up on the “wall” (which is more of a ridge, however
unnatural), amidst the scrub and the rocks, I can see more of them
in their green camouflage and masks, aiding the fight with the
occasional well-placed arrow, javelin, or slung stone. My five
mortal friends go with them quickly to add their guns to the
effort.

I need only glance at Jak and Elias to know we three
are in agreement as to our own course. We charge directly into the
skirmish, attacking the machines from their rear.

I can’t help but compare as we engage: we
do
move at least as fast and Ram and Bel do, but our blades inflict
more damage against Fohat’s metal. That, and we don’t have to dodge
return fire: What our blades can’t forestall by influencing the
machines, they can draw and consume. I see both Ram and Bel
hesitate as they watch what we can do.

“We’ve got more coming behind us!” Jak shouts to Ram
as greeting. He seems to recognize her, but then a look of
shock—and perhaps dismay—quickly sinks his features.

“At least six!” Elias estimates from what we can
feel.

They arrive just as we finish killing the ones we
came upon.

Three of the gun-armed Bugs come charging for the
canyon mouth, followed by three free-rolling Boxes.

“
HOLD YOUR LINE!
” I hear a familiar voice boom
from the rocks. I look up to the western crest of the barrier. Up
on the end-point, standing out in the open among a good dozen green
men, is a ruddy Nomad cloak. My sword recognizes him before I do,
feels
him: It’s Azrael, who looks like a man, acts not quite
like one, but my sword tells me is something else: “THE ANCESTOR”,
as if they’re distantly related. In any case, my sword seems to
value the distinction, enough to hold us back from attacking him
when he suddenly came into our midst during the fight with Bly,
when the third sword chose Jak instead.

Then I feel him reach out, hack… He’s transmitting on
the same frequency as the bots, shifting to keep up as they try to
shake him off, lock him out. It makes them hesitate even more than
our swords can.

“Let them see you!” he shouts down to us. “Give them
a good look!”

We three raise our swords in front of us, let the
machines know we’re ready for them, eager for them.

“That’s right…” He’s talking to the machines now.
“Good look. I think we’re done for the day, don’t you?”

The machines stay frozen for several long breaths.
Then they start to back up. Slowly.

“No. We’re not.” The voice that comes from behind me
now is all hard simmering rage. Then there’s the blast of a heavy
rifle. I feel the shell whip past me. It penetrates and then
explodes in the torso of one of the Gun Bugs. I turn and see that
it’s Paul Stilson, shooting from the hip. I recognize his gun, the
same one he shot Asmodeus with: it’s similar to the one Azrael took
from the Shinobi he killed when we first met.

I hear a scream, a berserk battle cry, see a figure
in armor come leaping over the point of the crest past Azrael,
flying far enough that he lands almost on top of the right-flank
bot, hacking and stabbing with his broadsword. The winged helmet
and human-skull-with-piranha-teeth mask tells me it’s Bly,
apparently feeling better but in an equally unforgiving mood.

“Well. Fuck.” Azrael sighs.

Then we’re all charging, screaming like madmen,
almost gleeful.

The machines don’t last nearly as long as I’d
like.

Unfortunately, killing the last bot doesn’t end the
day’s conflicts.

“
Now you
…” Bly hisses at Elias and I, turning
his sword on us. Our blades respond, happy to oblige a rematch.

“No!” Jak shouts, stepping between us. “Captain Bly,
please
! It’s me! Lieutenant Straker! Industry Peace Keepers.
We fought together. Rebelled together. I owe you my life…” But she
still has her sword out, pointed at him.

She looks at the blade, breathes, and with what looks
like great effort, puts the weapon in its scabbard. This seems to
make her somehow smaller, less
there
.

“Please, Captain… It wasn’t their doing. It’s these
swords. They manipulate. They try to make you fight. They want you
to fight.”

“They wanted
you
,” I try, managing to at least
lower my blade. “They wanted to make you a host.” And saying the
word “host” strikes me to the pit of my gut. I look at my
brother—he looks like he’s tearing himself apart just to stand
still. I make myself slip my blade in its sheath. It fights, both
physically and emotionally, every inch. And then, when my hand
finally breaks free, I do feel weaker, diminished. But the blade is
still connected to me, just by being on my person.

I nod what I hope looks like reassurance to my
brother, and he manages to sheath his weapon. He looks like he’s
going to collapse on the spot.

Bly still has his sword out. I want to fight him so
badly.

The green people have stood up out of their cover.
They line not only their “wall” but also the canyon slopes all
around us, hundreds of them.

“Please, Captain,” I hear Azrael. He’s skipped down
the wall slope and is now walking up to our little argument with
his usual casualness. “We have better things pressing. The Pax
offer their hospitality. To all of you.”

Up on the wall, my Nomad friends are standing with
the green fighters. Abbas is speaking with their still-masked
apparent leader, with Terina as their intermediary. I see them
grasp forearms.

“
No
,” Bly growls, though he does lower his
weapon. “You know we can’t.”

I realize: He has dried blood caked in the long teeth
of his mask. What…?

“What do yah think I did?” Bly snaps at me. We’re
somehow still connected, still in each other’s heads since our
first ugly encounter. He points his sword at Azrael. “Your strange
friend carried me off, found me ‘food’ to get me back in the
fight.”

“A scouting party,” Azrael explains calmly. “Already
dead.”

“
These people!
” Bly points at the green
warriors. “I
drank
them! It’s what I do! It’s what Chang
made me.”

“Bly, don’t…” Ram steps in.

“Don’t
what
?” he’s near raving. “Give away our
little secrets? You think the prey don’t know?”

“We need to protect them,” Ram tries.

“And we need to eat their dead to keep doing it,” Bly
reveals. “Except for Blue Boy. He’s still the only one on a
vegetable diet. But he’s not like us, is he?” Bly’s helmet locks on
me. “
You
are. You three. You’re hungrier than we are! You
suck from everything you touch. Don’t you see? We
can’t
be
friendly with these people!”

I flash on a sickening thought (in a flood of
sickening thoughts): We left Azazel and Lux wounded on a field of
slain Nomads (and two still-live ones). I expect I know the true
reason they wanted us to leave them there.

“We don’t feed on the living,” Bel defends
poorly.

“We. Eat.
People
.” Bly growls. “Needs must,
when the Devil drives, eh?”

I look at Ram, a man I respect, even idolize. His
face sinks. He’s defeated, weary, sickened by what he’s become. I
realize this is part of Asmodeus’ plan, just like Azazel said: Keep
them in an endless cycle of protecting, fighting, and recovering.
And to recover, they need resources. (And now, I’m no different. My
brother… And Jak, who was just unlucky enough to stumble into our
childish brawl…)