I cursed the fact we didn’t have any cuffs with us. Short-sighted, if not outright stupid of us really, but Eric hadn’t seemed worried at any point so I assumed he had ways of solving that issue.

  “Eric, should we cuff him?” I nudged Davian with my boot. He was splayed out on the floor, limbs in a tangle and sporting several additional bruises. The guards hadn’t been too gentle with him once they’d heard the full story. We’d retreated from the entrance to the catacombs and found ourselves in the main barracks area for the city of Stormwall, a gateway in an expansive room serving as the backdrop for our conversation.

  “No, we’ll take care of it. You should report back to Lilith as soon as possible though. I’ll bring him along shortly once I’ve arranged for an escort and seen to my injuries. The sooner I get help the higher the chance I recover.”

  Standing by the gateway, escorted by no less than twelve guards who’d dispersed around the room, we chatted briefly.

  “Alright, we’ll see you back in the city. You going to be alright?”

  He waved me off. “I’ll likely be fine. It is unlikely there will be any lasting damage. I will need the services of a Mage-Doctor though. Fortunately, there are several in this city.”

  I felt a mite sheepish at how I’d reacted after Eric had called for the Captain of the Guard. Time was of the essence, but I’d been rather brusque, in hindsight, especially considering I was an outsider here.

  “Sorry about ordering the guards around with your authority, earlier.”

  Eric just laughed. “Think nothing of it. You were only asking for transport and a physician for me, not piles of steel and silver. I would’ve asked for you anyway, if you hadn’t taken the initiative.”

  “Well, thank you for being understanding, regardless.”

  He nodded, a brief flash of discomfort flickered across his face. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like, being tortured through some magical gift. He had to still be feeling it.

  Eric cleared his throat. “Go, my friend, report to Lilith and we’ll speak again soon. She needs to know of what has transpired here.”

  I nodded to him, before stepping inside the nearby gateway.

  “You think she’ll be happy we’re not bringing him back with us?” Larsen asked privately of me.

  “Who, Lilith? Probably not.” I chuckled. “I don’t think she’ll care too much, she’ll probably be more worried about his injuries than the fact he’s not with us. I’m hoping that won’t cause any problems for us, but I really have no idea what that woman is like, or how she’ll react.”

  A mage walked up to us and I nodded to him politely. I wasn’t sure of his rank, but it seemed to be of a low to medium level. I could’ve been wrong of course; it was only a guess. There’d be time enough for me to memorise rank structures later, I was sure.

  “Well, I don’t know she’ll react either, but the odds are good she won’t be happy to hear of a covert base beneath one of her cities. That’s the type of thing we’d be in the shit for back home.”

  “Well, maybe not us.” I chuckled.

  “Right, but some officer somewhere would have to be sweating bullets over missing something like that.”

  The mage who was going to operate our gate nodded to me and placed his hands on the floor at the edge of the silver runes. I could see an elevated level of heat emanating from the man, especially around uncovered hands.

  “Safe travels,” was all he said, and then we were whisked away by his power. A split-second before I lost sight of him I saw the thermal signature around his hands flare a deep and angry red, a hallmark of a powerful spell as far as I could tell. The world flashed green again and everything changed.

  We appeared in the gateway room I recognised from when we’d initially been dispatched to track Davian down. I still thought it was beautiful, but honestly, there were more pressing matters on my mind at that moment than the architecture and aesthetics.

  “DO NOT MOVE!”

  A veritable swarm of mages and guardsmen leveled their weapons at us, magic and blades coming up to pen us into the gateway.

  I put my hands up slowly, raising them up and parallel with my head. Larsen did the same.

  “Are these good guys, or bad guys?” I asked Larsen privately.

  “Are you with our employer? Are you Ebonwreath?” I asked, tension and silence colluding to stretch my already tightly-strung nerves.

  They visibly relaxed, if only slightly, but their weapons remained where they were, pointed at us.

  “Are you?” One man asked, stepping between two mundane guardsmen. His helmet covered his face, but his voice was gravelly and rough.

  “We work for Lilith.”

  “You mean, Lady Lilith Shroud, High Commander of the Ebonwreath Guard?” He corrected, arching an eyebrow at me.

  “That’d be the one.” I nodded casually, keeping my hands up and in a non-threatening posture. I kept them deliberately visible and away from my body, ever-mindful that these men might take anything I did as a sign of hostile intent. Holding your supposed allies at spearpoint wasn't exactly a bright move, unless we were being double-crossed. I doubted that was the case though.

  “Prove it.” He said.

  I cursed my luck. We hadn’t had the chance to deal with the communication issues yet and I had no way to know if Carver had done as I’d asked by now and set up a secure line to her office. Though, Carver was probably within range of my suit communications, and so that line of thinking provided the solution to my problems.

  “Alright, we might be waiting a while though.”

  “For what?” Gravel Voice asked me.

  I shrugged. “For the High Commander to send someone down to get us. Excuse me a moment, would you? I need to talk to someone.”

  Taking no small amount of satisfaction at the confusion I saw in the man’s posture, as well on the faces of those without full-face helmets, I quickly tuned out the men around me as I immersed myself in my HUD.

  I delved into my suit’s communications menu with a perfunctory set of actions that was as familiar to me as breathing. A few short seconds later, I spoke into my helmet mic with a casual air, muting my outgoing audio.

  “What’s up, dickhead?” I asked, a genuine smile appearing on my face.

  A dry laugh came back over my implants.

  “Not much! Things are in full swing here. You’re finally back, eh?”

  “We are. We didn’t expect a huge welcoming party when we got back though. You think you can chase up Lilith for me? We’ve got a bit of a misunderstanding at the gate that we need her to clear up.”

  “Wilco. Give me five.”

  “Expedite, if you can, we’ve got time-sensitive intel to give her.”

  “Roger that.” The slight tension in Chen’s voice clued me in to his actions. He was running, now. I didn’t know if it truly was time-sensitive, but I figured it was a good bet. It was plainly obvious to me that Davian’s group had been planning some kind of attack and considering the timetable involved it would have to be soon, potentially this very same day.

  I brought up the data link on my HUD, watching as my suit sought out any compatible signals. It was no small surprise when the strongest signal was our escape pod. It had the largest transmitter and receiver by far, out of any equipment we’d brought with us. The pod’s IFF beacon wasn’t the only thing that I could ping though, which was a pleasant surprise.

  I saw six Hailstorm Mortar Systems on the network. They were automated, man-portable fire support systems capable of automatically loading and firing half a dozen different payloads at a rate of one round a second out to twenty-seven kilometres. Used in dozens of major conflicts for the past twenty-odd years they were well-tested, rugged pieces of equipment.

  Other than that, there was a smattering of other signals, mostly solar panels, communications arrays and a smattering of dedicated munitions sub-factories. That realisation gave me a palpable sense of relief; I couldn’t wait to fill my vests with a full set of magazines.

  Gone were the days of having to ship in new munitions, consumables and equipment. The distances involved in interstellar space were just too vast. The ability to manufacture what we needed on-site was a godsend, especially now that we were on our own. Instead of waiting what could be a literal eternity for more ammo to be shipped in, we could make our own.

  I patched myself into Carver’s suit, seeing his name was active on the network.

  “Carver, it’s Riley, got any good news for me?”

  “The reigning hero returns, welcome back.” He said. “I’ve got good news for you. We’ve got almost two-hundred magazines for our rifles, about a fifth that for our sidearms, smart rounds aren’t cheap so they’re not guided, but anything’s better than nothing, right?”

  “You can say that again. I feel naked without any ammo. Anything else stocked?”

  “We’ve got some mortars and signal repeaters set up around the city’s walls, a few munitions factories, obviously, and some harvesters running raw materials to the fabricator. I’m working on building us a larger fabrication system but it’s slow going trying to get some of the materials we need. We have to dig pretty deep, you know?”

  “Yeah, I don’t suppose they have any of the stuff we need laying around somewhere?”

  “Believe me, we checked and they don’t. Maybe some of the basics, but the rare earths and heavy metals are something we can’t do without. I’m not even sure they’ve discovered some of the elements we need. Once Chen and I got the merchants to work with us it really wasn’t too difficult to get what we needed for the ammo, but any of the more sophisticated stuff will take a while. Fabricators, aircraft, a lot of it will have to be rather basic if we want it now. We have to get to the point where we can begin pulling up the materials up from the mine we’re digging and we’re not quite there yet.”

  I shrugged, unconsciously. “We could be in worse shape, good work. It sounds like you’ve got it all worked out. We’ll get everyone together and iron out a detailed plan for the fabricators soon but what you’ve got should work fine for now. Anything interesting happen while we were gone that I should know about?”

  “Sort of? We’re not entirely sure.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of?’, Carver? What happened?”

  "We think it was a sniper, something like that anyway. He had a crossbow with runes on the bolt.”

  “Oh, great.” I said dryly. “I assume he's dead, then? All taken care of?” I sighed.

  “Yep. Chen was out talking to a merchant and on his way back he saw the guy acting shifty. He grabbed him, but not before he got off a shot into a crowd. There were some nasty burns when the bolt exploded, but nobody’s dead, surprisingly. The shooter’s sitting in a holding cell somewhere, as far as I’m aware. Chen didn’t get hit, but there are some new holes in the building that weren’t there before.”

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  “I’ll bring it up with Lilith later. Listen, do you have any charging cables ready for our suits? I don’t know about you, but my cells are running low.”

  “Several. That was the first thing I worked on.”

  “God bless engineers and armourers. Meet you at the pod in an hour?”

  “Sure. You going to brief us then?”

  “You and Chen might as well come along when I make my report. We’re in the gateway, surrounded by agitated young soldiers who apparently weren’t informed we’re working for Lilith.”

  “What? That’s… We’ve been telling people we worked for her, for the crown, for a while. The merchants here wouldn’t sell to us until we proved it. Chen practically had to force the paperwork down their throats. We’re sleeping inside the military quarter of their city! How can they not know?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me. Some people fail upwards, others are just too dumb to pour piss from a boot if the instructions are printed on the heel. It doesn’t really matter, just so long as the idiots stay out of our way, right?”

  I spied a commotion outside as the two sentries flanking the exterior door stepped forward to greet a young boy, a messenger or page of some sort, from the looks of him. Maybe a courier. “Hold on a minute, Carver. I’ll have to get back to you. I think we’re about to be cleared to make our report.”

  “Roger. We’ll meet you there.”

  “See you soon. Riley out.”

  I cut the channel with a few terse words. It wasn’t particularly exhausting standing in a suit for a few minutes—hardly at all, in fact—but it was rather annoying being held up when I had important intel to report. Especially when the guards should’ve already known better. I doubted anyone knew I was supposed to report directly to Lilith on a regular basis, but they sure as hell should’ve known we were working for her.

  Still, trying to ignore the proper procedures would just make a mess of things. As much as I wanted to ignore all these guardsmen, walk out of here and get down to business, it wasn’t so simple. Firstly, I couldn’t use the gateway to get down to Lilith’s office, none of us had magic. Secondly, ignoring the guardsmen because of their irritating ignorance would solve nothing and just delay us even more when they detained us or decided to push the issue.

  Closing the channel and swapping back to proximity-based voice comms, I watched as the page—dressed in elaborate garb—talked his way past the two guards, running right up to me, with little more than a sideways glance at anyone else, except perhaps for Larsen.

  “You are Edward?”

  “I am.” I nodded, kneeling down to bring myself to his level.

  “The High Commander wishes you to see her, without delay. You’re ordered to commandeer the services of any military mage to assist you in this endeavour.” The boy quoted the message from a piece of parchment, which he then handed over to me. I took a quick look, confirming his words were official orders and handed it back to him, grateful for his intervention. I'd wondered at Lilith's actual rank, but had neglected to ask before, her actual position had seemed more relevant. In hindsight, I wouldn't have been surprised if Lilith had withheld that bit of information out of caution, or paranoia.

  I enjoyed the immediate and very visible schadenfreude and shock that blossomed on each of the guards’ faces, almost all at once. They traded looks with each other, quite obviously thinking—but not saying—something along the lines of ‘oh shit’.

  A thought lodged itself in my brain as I examined the page. The boy had appeared from outside the gateway, which meant that either there was another way in and out of the HQ, or messages could be delivered via magic, in which case, why bother sending someone to tell us at all? Wouldn’t these men have some way of receiving messages via some runic artifact?

  I mulled the note over in my mind once more. It was suitably officious, but also very to the point.

  “Understood, tell her we’re on our way with all due haste.” I nodded to the page, and then stood, casting my eyes over to Larsen for a moment before locking eyes with the officer I’d been talking to.

  “So, let’s clear up this misunderstanding. What are your standing orders, soldier?” I asked.

  “I’m Lieutenant Faydrin, charged with protecting this gateway until more seasoned forces return from... elsewhere.” He replied, rather evasively, and I soon settled on the word awkward to describe his new demeanour. It was a little amusing to realise that I, a mere Corporal was giving orders to an officer, a Lieutenant.

  “Pleasure, Faydrin. Tell me, why detain us here? I have a report to make as you’ve just heard, critical information to deliver.” I pressed, eyes narrowing.

  “I didn’t recognise you. We were ordered to keep anyone out of the Military Quarter that we didn’t personally recognise, security’s been tight as of late.”

  I nodded sagely, choosing to ignore how stupid of an explanation that was as I made a show of thinking on that. Wasn’t there a physical description of our armour circulated around to the guards? Didn't they know who we were?

  “No doubt some of that was because of the impending attack, but the rest of it was because of us. Do you have a mage willing to escort us below?”

  “You don’t have one of your own?” He asked in mild surprise.

  “We don’t use magic.” I replied simply.

  He shook his head gently, appearing either unimpressed, or amused by that statement. Maybe both. It was hard to tell.

  He looked over at Larsen who’d so far just been watching everyone with her usual calm stoicism. “I notice your companion, hasn’t deigned to speak to me. Who is that?”

  Larsen scoffed. “His companion is his second-in-command and would be more than happy to participate in an exchange of martial culture with you, if we weren’t needed elsewhere.”

  He examined her with renewed interest, but didn’t quite seem to grasp her implication. He only confirmed that much with his next sentence.

  “Martial culture?”

  “I believe she offered to beat the crap out of you later, when we’ve got an open schedule.” I translated.

  The men around us bristled at that, swaying softly as if struck by a stiff breeze even as they stared daggers at us.

  “Oh, lighten up!” I yelled, laughing brazenly. They didn't lighten up, but that was fine. I hadn't really expected them to. “So, about that mage? We really do need to get going.” I pressed, looking pointedly at Lieutenant Faydrin.

  “Ah… yes. I’ll take you.” Faydrin stepped forward, shouldering aside his men and joining us in the circle.

  “Wait one.” I said, raising my hand next to him.

  “I’m sorry?”

  I chided myself for not being clearer. “Half of my team are about to arrive, give them a few minutes, will you?” I said by way of explanation.

  “Very well.” He sighed, a long-suffering thing like the flicker of a street light that refused to die. I hoped I wouldn’t need to work with him regularly, but dismissed the notion. If I did, I’d just foist him on someone else, or have Eric put him in his place at some point. He was far from the worst I'd had to tolerate, but his combination of incompetence and dismissiveness did nothing to endear me to him.

  We waited in silence for a while, not long, about five minutes. When Carver arrived, Chen walked in behind him as relaxed and lackadaisical as ever.

  “Gentlemen.” I nodded to them both as they took up position around me.

  We exchanged a few brief words over our comms network, but a not insignificant portion of our reunion was accomplished digitally. Packets of encrypted data were exchanged across our near-field-comms network at lightning speed. High-resolution images, personal impressions of those we’d gone up against, three-dimensional maps, a litany of data was exchanged, updated or cross-referenced.

  While I would’ve loved to take things slow and catch up on the way to Lilith’s office, we really did need to make sure she got the information we had as soon as possible so we cut our data-sharing short sooner than I’d have preferred as we walked into her office, the doors already wide open.

  “Thank you, Faydrin. We’ll talk later.” Lilith’s pursed lips and withering stare as he left made it clear she wasn’t too pleased at the delay. Her office was still as decadent as before, and the woman herself was wearing the same attire, too. The only thing that was different was her demeanour. It didn’t take a genius to see the concern she exhibited. It had ratcheted up a few notches since we'd left, if I was right.

  “Edward, report.”

  I stepped forward slightly, in front of the rest of my Marines who filed in behind and beside me. Standing at parade rest, arms tucked away behind me I began to give my report.

  “Davian is in your people’s custody at Stormwall. Eric’s wounded, but we can’t determine the extent of the damage. It didn’t seem to be life-threatening as he made it out under his own power. He was inside a cell and they did something to him through his magic.”

  She cursed, looking like she wanted to murder someone. The thought that ‘someone’ could mean me sent a few shivers down my spine. “I’m familiar with the technique. Continue.” She said.

  Her expression remained foul and dark, though that was really too mild a description. Micro-expressions flickered across her face, none of them pleasant. No doubt the result of whatever thoughts were passing through her head. Of course, I’d expected such a reaction before we’d even stepped foot in her office; I’d have been pretty pissed too if my apprentice had been tortured and then left in another city instead of being brought back to me.

  I spoke again. “Eric said he was seeing to Davian’s security and will be escorting him here shortly. The most pressing news however, and the reason I had to speak to you immediately is that we tracked Davian through a gateway to a concealed complex underneath Stormwall. It was quite extensive and there were a lot of people down there, at least a hundred, perhaps more. Davian was even training a teenager in magic, so I think it’s safe to say that whatever his agenda, recruitment is a part of it. I didn’t get a look at the whole place but there was an archives room, an armoury and several other places with functions I couldn’t identify.

  Most of the the complex was empty, they all evacuated when we broke out of the cell they put us in so I’m not sure of exact numbers or how populated it might have been. The exit we used to get out was a kind of false wall leading into the lowest level of the city’s catacombs but we didn’t see anyone leave. I’d assume they went to a different but similar complex, but I have no way of knowing. We do know they were working with a vampire. I killed him, but he let slip that the attack was going to come from below after I put some pressure on him. Considering how your people seem to love building underground, especially beneath cities, that doesn’t reassure me. There could be hundreds of them mustering below us right now.”

  Lilith stood, pulling a small obsidian orb from within an open drawer built into her desk. She placed it on the table and then began pacing behind the desk.

  She sat back down, expression lightening just a tad. “I somehow doubt they have evacuated. If anything, they’ve moved up their timetable. How are your preparations? Are you ready to start recruiting—training our soldiers to use your weapons?”

  “We’re not ready to begin proper training, not even to the level of my own basic training, but we can teach them to use our weapons without much trouble, as long as we find somewhere out of the way. Doing it inside the city would not be safe. I hesitate to even do basic familarisation with our weapons here."

  She arched an eyebrow. “Are your weapons truly that destructive?”

  “They are when an idiot uses them.” I shrugged, grinning. “Couldn’t the same be said for yours?”

  I heard laughter behind me, Chen, but he quickly shut up, cutting his laughter off abruptly.

  She smiled wryly. “You have a point. I will find you somewhere out of the way to train your recruits or at least teach volunteers how to use your weapons. It will have to be outside the walls. I don’t think we can spare the kind of space you’ll need within the city."

  “That’s more than acceptable.” I said.

  “I expect you to begin immediately. Those weapons may be the difference between us surviving this attack and losing the city. Is there anything else you wish to speak with me about, before I let you go?”

  I brought up the short list I’d been compiling on my HUD. “We’re having trouble getting a number of materials we need to build the equipment we require to train and equip your people. A lot of the metals and other things we need are buried very deep in the earth and quite frankly, we didn’t come equipped for extensive mining operations so it will take time to build the mining equipment and quite a bit of space.”

  “That's only to be expected, I don't fault you for not being prepared to fight a war. You are, as you say, refugees, albeit well-armed ones. What can you do now? It seems clear to me that this attack is unavoidable and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened right after this meeting. I need every edge I can get, and not just because the people are ready to revolt at the slightest provocation.” She exhaled sharply, frowning at something, most likely the strategic battlefield in her head which I’m sure was a nightmare for her to contemplate.

  Larsen stepped forward, keeping in line with me. “I believe the best chance of minimising loss of life is to interrogate Davian and acquire more details before we begin training and equipping your forces. I would like to be there for that, and if your methods fail, be allowed to interrogate him myself.”

  I knew for a fact Larsen wasn’t certified in counter-intel or any kind of interrogation—not according to her file, anyway—but I let her speak her mind.

  “You’re not getting emotional on me, are you?” I joked.

  “Hardly. I just want to be there when they pump him for intel. That or try my hand at it.”

  “I can handle it, if you’d prefer. Not to spoil your fun, but I’m likely to be far more qualified than you are in that area.” I admitted.

  Stark visions of ugly and at times sadistic treatment waltzed unbidden through my mind. Bolt cutters, knives, cables and scalpels, slick with blood, cutting, grinding, peeling—I stamped down on my wayward thoughts, shoving them into a darkened corner of my mind, but the images remained now that they’d been brought of hiding, just a little quieter than they’d been initially.

  “More qualified?” Larsen asked, pulling me away from my macabre reverie.

  “Yeah. I can't really get into why, just use your imagination. Black-ops, covert units, some real hush-hush you never saw us, type of shit." I repressed a shudder.

  "Who am I going to tell?” She laughed. “Classified doesn’t mean a whole lot right now, Edward.”

  “Well, forgive me for planning on making it home one day, okay?” I snorted.

  “So? How are you more qualified?”

  “So… so, I was part of a covert direct action force that didn’t mind getting its hands dirty. Bombings, abductions—torture.” I flinched slightly at the word, images crashing against my feeble defenses.

  "Huh. That makes sense." She finally said. "I could tell there was something off about you."

  “Just, take my word for it. I can handle the interrogation, especially if we don’t have time to do it right.”

  Lilith watched our interaction with no small amount of curiosity. We hadn’t made it a private conversation, it would’ve been rather awkward and the woman across from us was one person I wanted to be on the good side of. Insulting her by cutting her out of our conversation, even if it didn't really involve her, would've felt rude.

  “Alright… but I still want to be there for it.” Larsen said.

  “Of course.”

  “And I want to hear more about this covert unit.” She insisted.

  “Damn straight. You never told me you were a badass, Ed.” Chen chimed in.

  I just rolled my eyes. “We can discuss that later, all of you.” I scowled softly. “Much later. Preferably when I’m too drunk to remember my own name."

  “I take it you two want to be a part of the interrogation?” Lilith asked, redirecting our conversation to more important matters.

  I nodded. “That would be our preference, yes—though ideally all four of us would be present for it.”

  “That could be arranged. In fact, we should arrange it immediately.” Lilith said. “The sooner we’re finished with Davian, the sooner you can begin preparations for this attack. Come with me.”

  Our de facto commanding officer—or would it be client, since we were exchanging goods for services?—walked out from behind her desk, swiping the obsidian orb from its surface. It disappeared into one of the pockets of her leather pants.

  She brushed past us and we filed out of her office, following along behind her wordlessly. She set a brisk pace. The mage wasn’t quite in a hurry, sprinting every step of the way, but she certainly wasn’t waiting around for anyone, either.