The mining robot died, slumping forward, and Eleanor fell to the ground awkwardly, her balance gone. One of the Storm Troopers retrieved her arm from the fallen robot’s grip and slotted it back in place. She flexed it, found it was dented at the elbow, but it would do. She turned back to the remaining infantry.
‘That’s how it’s done,’ she called. ‘Come on!’
Heartened, they attacked. She saw one mining robot fall, then another. Just as she began to feel the first wave of satisfaction at her work, there was a shout and then something tumbled down close to her feet.
A rough sphere, slightly smaller than a head.
It exploded in a tangle of blue wire.
Through the swirling snow, in the last of the evening light, Kavan watched as Eleanor defeated the mining robot.
‘Good work,’ he noted approvingly. ‘If nothing else, she is a fighter.’
Then he noticed that dark shapes had begun falling amongst the right flank of the attack. One of them fell at Eleanor’s feet: he saw the explosion, he saw her fall.
‘They’re coming from farther around the bowl,’ said Wolfgang, pointing.
‘What are they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Send Anders’ troop up there to deal with them.’
Wolfgang relayed the order to a waiting Scout. Kavan turned back to observe the unfolding attack. Things were going well. Losses were still acceptable.
He looked towards the skeletal tower that squatted at the centre of the valley: a ball of riveted copper plate, supported on iron legs. Was the Wizard waiting in there, directing his defence?
‘What about Eleanor?’ asked Wolfgang.
‘What about her?’ Kavan gazed out over the darkening battlefield. ‘Artemis is not about individuals. Either she lived or she died. The attack goes on.’
A sudden blast of snow covered Kavan’s metal body, and he staggered. The wind was particularly strong here at the end of the corridor of rock, blasted through the mountain by their bombs.
‘We need to move,’ said Wolfgang. ‘The engineers need to clear this area if we are going to run a railway into here.’
‘Very well.’ Kavan was looking at the fractured rock walls around them. ‘We’ll move over to the left, I think. It should give us a good view over the battle when daylight returns.’
Kavan and his aides began to pick their way along a path that led around the rim of the stone crater. They compacted the snow with their metal feet or scuffed it aside. Kavan looked with interest at the line of trees planted along the side of the path. Their branches had been carefully pruned away along one side, keeping the way clear. Someone had been taking proper care of these organic life forms.
Across the expanse of the bowl, the skeletal tower seemed to be watching him.
‘Maybe we should regroup?’ suggested Wolfgang. ‘Hold off until the light is better?’
‘No. We don’t need to see to destroy. They are at a disadvantage.’
And as he spoke, light flared up from the skeletal tower: a golden fountain of light that rose into the deepening night, illuminating all of the battle. And then a ribbon of fire spilled out along the ground, unrolling from the flimsy-looking structure of the tower. And then another, and another. It became a crisscrossing net of flame that spread throughout the land below them.
‘What is it?’ wondered Kavan.
‘Petrol,’ said Wolfgang. ‘They’ve filled trenches with petrol! They’re lighting up the night so that they can see the battle!’
The orange light became like a solid wall sweeping across the North Kingdom, till it evinced an almost tangible presence: Kavan saw the way the falling snow danced and billowed upwards, repelled by the heat of the flames. Black smoke belched out and began to flow west.
‘West, not south!’ observed Wolfgang. ‘The heat’s affecting the wind,’
Something else was burning. One by one, great hands of fire were igniting, fiery fists brandished at the sky. And then Kavan realized what he was seeing: the trees that lined the paths through the North Kingdom were igniting, bursting forth with blossoms of red fire, adding more smoke to the line snaking west.
‘They’re sacrificing part of their own city,’ said Kavan, in awed tones.
He looked around for Eleanor, chided himself for doing so. She would return if she would return. But he wanted to share this moment with her. She would understand. They hadn’t done it in Stark, they hadn’t done it in Wien, they hadn’t done it in Turing City. But they were doing it here. The enemy were giving their all to the fight. These people really believed in something.
He turned to a nearby Scout.
‘Tell the engineers to move quickly. We’re going to need more troops in here soon.’
Olam and the rest had moved virtually unchallenged through the maze of streets that ran amongst the hovels. A few of the pitifully thin robots had tried to form a line in order to defend their homes. Doe Capaldi and Parmissa and the rest had simply marched through it, their kicks and punches easily breaking their opponents’ badly constructed bodies. Olam had crashed into their homes, searching out the robots that sheltered there, shooting the adults, taking the children and swinging them by the legs, cracking open their heads against the sharp ground. Their bodies were left in piles to be collected later by the scavenger teams, the metal to be bundled up and sent back to Artemis City for recycling.
The killing lust was welling up inside him again; it pulsed in time with the movements of his electromuscles. As the streets had lit up with fire and the trees had begun to burn; as the patterns of the flames danced on the silver skins of the Scouts that darted back and forth along the paths; as the sound of metal twisting metal rose up on the gusts of the wind; as the battle moved to its climax, Olam finally surrendered himself totally to Artemis.
He was no longer a Wiener, he was an Artemisian. He was part of the ultimate power, the supreme race, the conquerors of Shull, the future rulers of the entire world of Penrose itself.
Smoke belched from the trees, from the burning ditches, enfolding him, hiding him…
Releasing him.
Karel stood alone in the valley, revving his engines, impatient to be off. Ahead of him the sky was slowly illuminated by a great orange glow, and he wondered what was happening over there. Thick black smoke was feeling its way down the tracks towards him, more and more of it pouring its way south, shouldering aside the falling snowflakes. It lapped over the tracks, lapped around his wheels, and then it slowly rose, engulfing him.
What was going on?
‘Hello?’ he said, tentatively. No reply, not that he had been expecting any.
He waited, seemingly suspended in the darkness. They had taken away his family, then his body… now they had taken away his sight. What next?
He revved the engines, felt the train shudder. The enfolding smoke cleared a little. He saw shapes out there, infantryrobots maybe, running past him. Running away? He revved the engines again. This time he saw nothing.
What was happening out there?
Then there was a voice.
‘Drive! Quickly! Get out of here!’
The voice thrilled with urgency. Karel revved the engines, released the brakes, started to roll. The smoke parted a little, and he saw more infantry running past.
‘Faster!’ urged the voice.
‘I can’t see where we’re going!’
‘It doesn’t matter. We need to get to the front!’
He felt a coughing splutter somewhere inside him.
‘Faster!’ said the voice. It seemed to guess his thoughts. ‘Ignore that sound!’
That splutter again. And then something else.
‘The wheels are slipping!’ protested Karel.