Another tale, sung in Solice’s mines. This one of a monster of steel, one which demands a beating heart as sacrifice to deliver its terrible wrath. And of the poor souls which had the misfortune to line its path.
Notice: contains brief descriptions of gore and death.
They say some men do not fear death. They gaze at the reaper’s grim sickle with nary a flinch nor a cower. They defy nature and instinct with resolution for a cause vast.
But to most—even the hardened and bold—the gentle caress of death’s skeletal hands causes dread untold. Devotion runs only so far, courage has its limits ere the dark. You could prompt soldier of Empire or Nation to fulfill duty, to take up arms against a foe they viewed as wrong. Yet even those who march forth and take lives cannot force themselves to believe the lie: that there is nothing in the void to fear, that the looming cloak is no cause for tears. Until the end, these souls rebel—right until their hearts are quelled.
Such was true of the party set at the Front of Eden, resting amid a captured objective. Many lives the Nation had lost, many had paid the terrible cost. Yet the deed was done; for the Empire was now on the run. Those still capable moved to pay respect to their dead. And those of the Empire? They were torched instead. One soldat sat, breathing hard from the battle long fought, still growing used to a calf of wood and iron. Her helm aside laid, red curls spilling down, she gestured for the mortician observing the shade:
“Craven, if you are done cowering in the dark, may I ask for your aid?”
The man did as was asked, too worn to speak back. He removed not his helmet, nor did he sit, rather retrieving morphine from his kit. Placing the syringe’s needle into her arm, he injected the substance produced in Solace’s pharms.
One bearing carrying a makeshift lance stood beside the pair, face set in a zealous grin. Another joined them, a rook hauling tools to work on the soldat’s shin. Together this group stayed, watching a fire pit ablaze.
Yet none knew of the Empire’s plans. The Queen’s generals declared, after short deliberation, that the location was too great to lose, regardless of the suffering it caused man. Thus, they authorized the weapon terrible and grim—a suit of armor welded shut at its hinges. A coffin of heavy steel, a cage entrapping the soul within. Inhumane, it was known. Cruel to both friend and foe. Yet the generals promised glory eternal, a name established forever, all for accepting inevitable peril. One man volunteered from the crowd, accepting the iron shroud. A team was swiftly assembled, doctors, mechanics, armsmen of all sorts. The man stared grimly ahead, his body becoming the mind to a monster already dead. Metal was clasped so tightly he could not help but gasp. Pistons pounded his flesh at the clasps. Moments before he could scream, his body rebelling as his will fought to remain supreme, a doctor injected him with a syringe of quiet melted into a liquid. Then another. Then one more. Soon the man felt no more. His mind a haze, yet his sacred duty unphased, he matched from the base in what felt like a dreamlike daze. His comrades rallied behind the mix of man and machine, knowing it to be the last chance to win the approval of their Queen.
Soon he reached the front, and so began on his hunt. Men screamed, powder boomed,
The world became hell inside a tomb.
As bullets glanced off the armor and hydraulics, the Golden Empire soldier advanced to all’s doom, the gun clasped in his chemical-fueled hands ringing out throughout the stone room. The group formerly set by the fire broke and ran to avoid lead hail raining down like a deathly gale. Yet not all bore enough fortune to escape. The lancer, too clumsy, too slow, would find her spine shattered, insides blasted out below. Unable to stand, unable to run, she would die lying in her entrails undone. The rook too would catch a round stray, tearing his arm at the shoulder in crimson spray. Try to flee he would, only to falter and fall as shock set in, passing away on the stone pressed to his chin.
Those who fled—the only ones who survived—would whisper of horrible dread; a monster, they called it, a machination of cruel iron. One who walked forwards even as bullets glanced off its frame. It did not pause, it did not yield, only advancing over the field. Soon the objective was gone, further lives cost, as the Golden Empire retook what they had lost.
The soldiers of the Empire looked to the man sealed inside the dented coffin of steel. So many bullets left their indentions on its frame; the last valiant, terrorized, desperate measures of those on whom death had laid its claim. Beneath the armor, his body boiled, his legs gave in, both falling to the heat and damage within. Even through the numbing agent, the man could feel the end approaching. One after another, systems gave in to death encroaching. One officer, carrying a pen and paper, walked to the doomed soul and posed a final question:
“What do you feel, having served your Empire? A man fearless and with all he required?”
The man scarcely moved behind the plate, eyes wide, knowing his fate. His voice, dry and shaking, responded desperately pleading:
“W… wa… ter.”
Was it fear he felt, in those last moments? Few can say. Maybe such was retribution for all he had slain. The man passed with assurances that he had served his Queen. But in the end, was his will truly so clean? Was dread truly absent from his heart? Was such possible, for the living and the sane?
Or did all, deep down, carry dread in their veins?
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