The Bigger They Are

“Pull your forces back, they can’t do anything to that machine,” Espa shouted with uncharacteristic force at the quailing guard captain. “Bring up your earth mages to help corral it and put everyone else on crowd duty; people will get trampled if they flee in a panic! I should not have to tell you any of this!”

“Y-yes, your Highness,” he said, saluting and backing away.

“Wait!” Aldan shouted, dashing up to them slightly out of breath. “Thank you, Espa. Captain, do you even have any earth mages in your unit?”

“Ah, no, your Highness, that’s rare magic and they’re all—”

“Very good then, do as my sister said about the rest of it. We must at all costs prevent a panic.”

“Yes, your Highness,” the man said with some relief. “That’s exactly what I’ve had my men doing since the cliff face started to crack.”

“When I was coming over the rubble I had a better view,” said Aldan, “and it didn’t look like the evacuation was making much progress. This crowd still looks clustered just beyond the plaza. What’s gone wrong?”

“It’s the city’s layout, your Highness. Kourvald is built to be defensible, but the same system of canals and bridges that would slow an invading army also slows a civilian evacuation. And there are multiple layers of them surrounding the castle complex itself! My men are doing their best, but they’re trying to get this crowd out through a few chokepoints. It’s a miracle there hasn’t been a stampede.”

“I see,” said Aldan, frowning. “Good work, Captain. Have some faith in our people; if they haven’t panicked it’s because they have tougher minds than the average rabble of villagers. Carry on as best you can.”

“Yes, your Highness!”

Aldan extended both hands and projected a beam of concentrated light at the front-leftmost tread at which Ophia was already hurling shafts of ice.

“Your Highness, is there…anything we can do?” the captain asked. “This thing looks unstoppable.”

“We only have to buy time,” said the Prince. “Morenna is attacking it from the inside; we just need to stall it from doing any further damage to the city until she can get to the core and shut it down.”

“The Black Princess? Are you sure she…can be…trusted?”

Aldan did not look up from his target, and his expression did not change. “Be careful what you imply about my sister, Captain.”

“Yes, your Highness!” the captain barked, going pale and saluting. Catching Espa’s scowl, he backed up, then turned and hurried to join the line of his soldiers standing between the crowd and the Crusher.

Mages and archers on the castle walls were also pelting the machine with futile attacks, but in its emergence it had damaged the main ramp leading to the castle gates; life mages were bounding down the remaining cliff face, but no more reinforcements could reach them.

The Crusher’s forward movement had been slowed significantly by the time it climbed out of the hole, but now it suddenly paused.

Aldan and Ophia momentarily broke off their attacks, reassessing; Uthien came to a stop in midair in front of it, tungsten spheres raised for another strike, and their other siblings clustered nearby.

The City Crusher made an abortive move as if it had started to turn, then its upper housing rotated back the other way. This time, it did so with a grinding noise that echoed across the city, and sparks flew from several places where it connected.

Rakkan let out a whoop. “Attagirl! She’s tearing it down!”

“Press the attack!” Aldan shouted, resuming his light beam. “Remember the beetle tank—if it goes completely haywire, it might charge forward. We need that tread disabled!”

“On it!” Rakkan called, bounding forward as Ophia resumed hurling spells. He leapt up onto the tread itself, perilously close to the spot where his siblings were hammering the machine with spellfire; bending, Rakkan gripped one of the tread plates with both hands, braced his legs, and began pulling upward with a snarl of effort.

Almost directly above him, a flash of light briefly illuminated one of the Crusher’s armor plates from all sides, and a glowing blade burst out from within. For a moment it shone there from the middle of the hole it had made, then withdrew…and the entire chunk of armor toppled forward.

Vanerra and Espa lunged up to intercept; they struck the slab of metal in unison, sending it toppling safely to the side away from Rakkan.

A gasp followed by a cheer rose from the trapped civilians behind them, and a second later, the Crusher emitted another terrible grinding noise, its upper housing once more rotating with even more difficulty, putting off gouts of smoke and sparks, and for the first time its main structure began to falter as if something crucial had broken within, causing the top part of the chassis to settle at a wrong angle.

With an even louder grind, it started trying to move forward again, now painfully slowly, but the progress began rolling Rakkan and the tread he was pulling toward the front edge of the tread structure.

Vanerra and Espa both joined him, grabbing the piece of metal and pulling alongside their brother—and at last, with a screech of rending metal and a snap that sent fragments flying, the whole panel burst free.

As the crowd cheered once more, Rakkan caught his balance, raised the huge panel overhead in both hands, and slammed its narrow edge straight down into the wheels and gears of its own assembly.

He and his sisters leapt clear as the Crusher’s attempt to continue rolling forward fed the sheet of metal right into its own mechanism, where the wheels Ophia and Aldan had been attacking finally shattered under this new abuse. The entire front left tread assembly collapse; the City Crusher groaned as it leaned helplessly in that direction, its weight bearing down into flagstones that shattered beneath it.

The machine was clearly suffering. Half-collapsed, immobilized, and whatever Morenna was doing to its inside had seemingly severed its ability to control its arms; they all hung limp.

Intermittent sparks and smoke were venting from every joint where the arms connected to the body, as well as almost every moving part. The machine kept twitching feebly, rotating its upper chassis in erratic little jerks that produced painful screeching and grinding sounds. As they watched, a gout of flame burst from the opening where the first arm had fallen off.

“Morenna,” Espa whispered, clutching her hands.

Suddenly the entire machine flashed—light burst in a brief, intense flare through every opening, of which there were now many more between its armor plates. Then it began trembling violently, a rumbling sound beginning to grow from within.

“Life mages forward!” Aldan roared. “Stand ready to intercept flying debris!”

As mages rushed to spread themselves out in front of the crowd, the rumbling escalated until the entire City Crusher was trembling visibly. Whole segments of its armor began shaking loose.

Until suddenly half the uppermost segment burst outward, disintegrating completely.

Fortunately the armor segments were too heavy to fly far, simply tumbling over the sides. Whatever had burst within the machine did so with a force that sent several large gears and other internal fragments hurtling into the air.

And as the onlookers watched in awe and fear, the largest piece burst apart in flight, torn asunder by impacts of the magic sword grasped by the girl within.

Momentum continued to carry her upward as the metal shell in which she’d shielded herself from the blast fell apart; Morenna was a black streak shooting into the sky, holding the glowing blade out to one side and leaving a trail of steam behind her.

Rakkan let out a cheer, as did more than a few of the watching civilians.

“WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING?” Ophia shrieked, hurling a fireball to the ground in front of her siblings and making them jump away. “She has no shadows up there! HELP HER!”

Uthien was already moving, swooping down to snatch up a length of colorfully striped canvas that had been part of some festival tent minutes ago. He shot skyward, intercepting Morenna just past the apex of her ascent, as she turned gracefully in midair to start plummeting toward the ground. He whipped the rippling fabric around her body, and for a brief moment she was a rough shape outlined by the canvas—one edge of which had already been set on fire by her sword.

Then, to a gasp from the crowd, the shape vanished, leaving the fabric to flutter unhindered down from the sky.

And Morenna herself shot straight forward out of the shadows beneath the front of the City Crusher, between its treads. Only the angle had changed; her downward momentum became forward, but she smoothly adjusted her body mid-flight to land with her boots upon the paving stones.

Morenna landed in a crouch, her inertia carrying her forward in a long slide with the blazing sword still held safely to the side. The force of it brought her almost to the formation of guards, but she finally came to a stop a few paces away. Right in front of the arc of her siblings, just as Uthien settled down from the sky at her side.

The Black Princess straightened her knees, smoothed her hair back with her free hand, and smirked. Behind her, the City Crusher finished collapsing in on itself.