The Fall

“Run!” Aldan shouted, and they did—less because of his shout than because the City Crusher had fired up its huge drill arm and started swinging it at them.

The drill slammed through the window at the far end of the room right as they were scampering through the door.

Behind them, the beetle tank bay was ripped to shrapnel as the Crusher raked its drill through the wall; the windows dissolved and the stone floor and ceiling barely slowed the drill. The seven of them raced up the corridor, putting distance between them and the door by the time the drill reached that point.

But the City Crusher was not trying to destroy that room, it was swinging its drill arm in an arc. In seconds it was chewing the corridor behind them to shards.

Unfortunately, it turned out that this window-lined walkway was not hewn into the surrounding stone, but bolted to the ceiling. As the end of it was demolished, supports gave way and the entire thing buckled free. Suddenly, the seven of them were running uphill as the end of the corridor broke loose and began its four-story fall to the floor below.

Ironically it saved their lives. They had no hope of outrunning that drill, but by the time it cleaved through the space above them, they’d plunged below the level of its swing.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

As the walkway fell, Morenna vanished; Uthien pushed gravity against every wall, fixing himself in the center. Fortunately the life mages had enough presence of mind to protect their siblings: Rakkan grabbed Ophia to shield her from the onrushing ground with his body, while Espa and Vanerra both latched onto Aldan and braced themselves.

All of it was barely enough.

They hit the floor with such force that the noise alone was disorienting. What little glass had survived this far shattered in every direction, the metal itself twisting from the impact. Walls crumpled and the ceiling collapsed onto them, complete with parts of metal beams and fragments of stone from the surrounding cavern.

Uthien was quick enough to avoid the worst of the impacts; he bruised himself on one side as the sudden stop bounced him against the floor, but he’d been pressing against its gravity hard enough that it was a relatively light blow.

Morenna reappeared the instant the fall ended, heaving a chunk of rock to one side and then planting Blackwing under a metal girder for leverage to heave it off Espa and Aldan.

“Get them up!” Uthien barked, his voice already fading as he shot upward. “I’ll distract it!”

Morenna spared a glance after him, just long enough to verify the City Crusher was reacting to a new attack rather than finishing them off. In the next moment the sounds changed to metallic grinding as its enormous limbs and treads were put to use chasing after Uthien, accompanied by the rhythmic pings of three tungsten balls repeatedly hammering against its armor.

“Espa!” she said, dropping her sword and patting Espa’s face. “Wake up! Come on, look at me.”

Espa blinked, her eyes not quite focusing. “I…what…”

“Sweetie, I need you to focus. We need you, Espa. Heal yourself, quickly!”

“Heal,” Espa mumbled, rubbing blood out of her eye. “I…right. Who needs…”

“You! You first! Heal. Yourself.”

Morenna seized her by the shoulders as if that would help get the idea through; strangely, it seemed to work. Espa blinked twice more, then closed her eyes, shivering as she focused on magic. Cuts sealed and bruises faded, and then she jerked upright, gasping.

“What— Uthien!”

“It’s okay,” Morenna said urgently, “he’s faster than that thing. But he can’t hold it off forever, we need to get everybody back on their feet. We need you, sister!”

“Right!”

One by one, Espa laid hands on each of her siblings, channeling healing magic and repairing the damage of their impact. As soon as she’d shoved the debris off of everybody, Morenna raised Blackwing and stepped outside the wreckage between them and the City Crusher, as if she and her sword could do anything to it. For now Uthien was successfully keeping its attention, swooping through the air and pounding ineffectually with his tungsten spheres. The huge clockwork’s armor was impervious to them, but its counterattacks were far too slow to reach the prince.

“We gotta get the hell out of here,” Rakkan said, bounding up beside Morenna. “Quick, get to…the… Okay, where’s the damn exit?”

They all swept their eyes around the walls, finding nothing that looked like a door.

“Maybe it’s on a different level?” Ophia suggested. “Does anybody see a ladder?”

Wordlessly, Vanerra pointed; they followed her arm to the twisted shape of a broken metal ladder sticking out of the walkway that had just fallen with them.

“Who builds a giant room with the only exit up a four-story ladder?” Rakkan exclaimed. “No wonder all these assholes are dead!”

“We can’t run, and there’s nowhere to hide,” said Aldan. “We have to fight.”

“Hey, bro, back off,” Rakkan warned. “I’m the comedian in this family.”

“We can do it,” Aldan insisted. “The same strategy will work. Wear down its arm joints, then the tread components. When it’s disabled, work through its armor, then finish it off. The only difference is scale.”

“Scale!” Ophia screeched. “Aldan, look at that thing! That would take hours!”

“Then we’ll fight for hours!” Aldan snapped. “The way our parents did when they conquered this continent! Do you think I don’t know what I’m suggesting? The enemy must be destroyed before we can even start working on a way to escape this chamber. We’re not just fighting to position ourselves politically—this is now about survival.”

“Morenna can get away,” Vanerra suggested.

“Getting reinforcements down here would take too long, and I doubt there are any that could even help,” said Morenna. “And there’s no other reason I would abandon you here.”

“We’ll have to adjust the strategy, that’s all,” Aldan stated. “It’s too big to opportunistically strike every possible target; we have to focus one at a time. There, the lowest arm on this side, the joint right at its body. Ophia and I will keep at it with spells, Rakkan and Vanerra will stay close and help get us out of the way when it counter-attacks. Espa, you’re our only hope if someone gets hurt; we’ll need you to hang back and conserve your strength. Everyone stay moving—we may not be faster, but we’re more agile. Sweep to the sides, don’t try to outrun it. Morenna will help Uthien keep it distracted until we’ve done enough damage to disable that arm, then we’ll see if black steel and tungsten can tear apart a destroyed joint. Then on to the next one.”

“No, wait,” Ophia said, frowning. “Maybe its size can help us. Once we destroy that joint… It looks big enough for a person to get through the gap.”

“You’re right!” Aldan exclaimed. “Good thinking, sister! If we can get that arm off, Morenna at least and maybe the life mages can get inside and take apart the gears!”

“Just me,” Morenna said tersely. “It’ll be cramped in there, I’ll need to be able to hit things indiscriminately without hurting you.”

“Understood,” said Aldan. “Morenna, update Uthien on the new plan. Everyone, this is not where we die. Keep moving, and watch each other’s backs. Let’s kill this thing.”