Keri took a step back from the slumbering war machine, and fell into a defensive guard before once again realizing that he’d lost his Næv’bel during the fight against the winged war-machine. Instead, he had only the enchanted blades they’d looted from Antrian wreckage.

“As long as they’re asleep, they won’t harm us,” Arjun said. The healer actually took a step forward and began examining the shadowed machinery. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t think there’s actually anything alive inside this. These are the lesser war machines - the kind the Foundry Rift turns out in batches.”

“How can you tell?” Keri asked.

“I don’t feel any bones in there,” Arjun explained. “Nor any blood, either.” He turned to the right, and peered down the aisle between the machinery. “But there is something down there.” He raised one hand and pointed, then slowly began picking his way through the darkness in that direction.

“Something alive? Another person preserved in ice?” Keri asked, following just behind Arjun. He kept one blade raised in his right hand, held in a reverse grip like an oversized dagger, with the flat against the outside of his forearm so that he could use it to block.

“Preserved - maybe,” Arjun answered, though his voice sounded distracted. “It does feel similar. Like something had been slowed almost to the point of being stopped.”

The aisle led them to the far end of the long chamber, where a great doorway emerged from the dimness. The double doors of stone were closed, lit only by the always present Vædic sigils that pulsed in unnerving rhythm.

Keri paused to consider the problem. “If there is someone alive in there, we can’t simply turn away and abandon them,” he decided. “It might be a member of the party that came here forty years ago - someone that we can save. But without Liv here, I’m not certain how to open these doors.”

“They don’t seem nearly as willing to open for us without her,” Arjun agreed. “And I don’t think we can use her frost wedging technique here. Aluth can be used to make very thin shapes - perhaps I could slide a thin plane of mana underneath the doors, and then use it to pull the doors outward.”

“I suspect my own magic won’t be of any use here,” Keri admitted. “But if you think that you -” he paused as the lighted sigils pulsed stronger than before, and a portion of them remained lit. Spirals of sigils, rather than dimming, shone brighter - not only from the door in front of the two men, Keri saw, but from behind them as well. The glow was enough to draw his eye, and when he looked back down the aisle, every cradle of machinery was lit.

The doors ground slowly open, while hisses of steaming and the grinding of gears sounded from every Antrian which lined either side of the corridor. “Go!” Keri hissed to Arjun. “Through the door!”

“We don’t know what’s in that room,” Arjun pointed out, but Keri only shook his head.

“Whatever it is, it’s better than fighting twenty or thirty of those things,” he said. With the salvaged blade still raised in his right hand, Keri strode forward, turning sideways to slip between the double stone doors as soon as he judged that he could fit. Arjun followed him, and together they found themselves in a square room that was open at the center, descending down to the level below.

A sort of parapet of metal grating ran along the inside of all four walls, so that the center could be viewed from any side by those atop the walkway. There was a set of metal stairs, as well, leading down, and an immense variety of piles, cables, and other machinery hanging down from the ceiling, connected to a single mechanical cradle below.

“I thought there was someone trapped in here,” Keri hissed, casting about for another block of ice, like the one they’d found in the great hall when they’d first entered the Tomb.

“There is,” Arjun said. “Down there.” The healer hurried over the metal walkway to the stairs, and tromped down, his boots clanging and echoing off the steel the entire way.

“If those things haven’t heard us yet, they will now,” Keri grumbled, then followed.

At the bottom of the stairs, the two men found a series of glass panes, each lit with different colors of Vædic sigils. The casket itself featured a window, frosted almost entirely over so that it was difficult to make out anything within. Arjun rubbed at the glass with the fur of his winter cloak, scrubbing away frost until they could see the metal head of an Antrian war machine inside, eyes dark.

“This is it,” Arjun said. “This is what I could feel. There’s bone in there - not much, but some. And blood. I think this is one of the war-machines that was built around a person. What was left of one, at least.”

Keri frowned. “If it’s someone who served Ractia, then it isn’t someone we need to worry about saving,” he decided. “We need to keep moving. If we can find Liv and Rose, the four of us have a better chance of surviving together.”

As if triggered by his words, the sigils lining the chamber flared brightly, then stayed lit. Gears began to turn, and the curved glass pane over the head of the slumbering Antrian opened, releasing a billow of cold fog. Bolts unfastened, pipes and hoses fell away, and panels of metal swung open.

“Blood and shadows,” Keri cursed. “Get behind me.” He raised the enchanted blade, falling back into a guard meant for use with daggers. Arjun fell back and drew his wand, though Keri wasn’t certain how effective the healer’s spells would be against an Antrian.

The monster that emerged from the machinery was enormous. Keri guessed that it was even larger than the Antrians he’d fought at the bridge in Varuna, with layered plates of enchanted steel that made the dagger in his hand feel positively inadequate. Each step of the behemoth shook the floor, the metal parapets above, and the stairs, rattling the loose machinery that hung, now disconnected, from above.

Blue light picked out the sigils engraved into the enormous blade attached to the monster’s right arm - it was so wide that it reminded Keri more of a butcher’s knife than any kind of sword. He braced himself to block its first swing, already anticipating that it would probably break his arm.

Instead, the creature’s eyes - shining with the same blood light as the sigils - glared from beneath its helm. It was difficult to read anything by those eyes, or by its posture, so inhuman were they both, but Keri thought he saw it come to a decision.

Panels opened on both shoulders, and not one, but two of those familiar ranged weapons emerged. They were both shaped like bundles of tubes, and the moment they began rotating, Keri knew what was coming. It must have decided to go with an attack that he couldn’t use a blade to block.

“Aluthō ais’veh Novis perae Mae,” Arjun shouted, lunging forward past Keri with his wand raised. A circular pane of pure blue mana solidified in front of them both, shot through with veins of shining gold - just in time to save their lives.

The spinning weapons cracked out thunderous reports in sequence, so rapidly that between the two of them it all bled together in Keri’s ears like one continuous roaring. He crouched behind the mana shield with Arjun, both of the men pressed together to shelter their bodies completely.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The shield cracked, first in fine, barely visible lines, and then, as the onslaught continued, in deeper crevices that spiderwebbed through the pitted, failing magic. Arjun screamed wordlessly with the effort to hold his spell together, and he very nearly succeeded. The sound of the weapons died at almost the same instant Arjun’s spell finally broke apart and dissolved into floating motes of mana, and the cacophony was replaced by the much quieter clacking of the weapons slowing their rotation.

Unfortunately, the last few projectiles spat out by the war-machine made it through Arjun’s defenses, and both he and Keri screamed out in pain as they were pierced. Two great clangs sounded off Keri’s enchanted armor, but he felt a hot line of pain on the outside of his left shoulder. They were both flung backward by the impact, onto the floor of the chamber, and Keri could already smell the metallic scent of blood from their wounds.

Keri rolled off his back onto his hands and knees, and lurched to his feet, scavenged blade raised. He had, finally, nothing left. Not his spear, not his spells, not even the companions he’d entered the Tomb with. Arjun was bleeding on the ground, and Keri knew that he couldn’t expect the healer to mount another last-instant defense. Liv and Rose were lost somewhere in the labyrinthine passages of the rift. He was left tired, wounded, and utterly inadequate to face the monster in front of him.

Still, perhaps if he could distract it long enough, Arjun might be able to crawl away and hide himself somewhere. It wasn’t what Keri wanted - he wanted to make it back to Mountain Home and see his son again. Rika and his cousin Sohvis could throw themselves off a cliff for all he cared at this point, but he wanted to swing Rei up off the ground and hold the boy in his arms just one more time.

Instead, he charged. The Antrian juggernaut was powerful and implacable, but Keri had the edge in speed. He ducked under the first sweep of its immense arm-blade and drove his makeshift dagger straight up toward its helm. The monster was so large that he had to lunge forward and extend his arm up above his head just to reach its head.

A blue mana-shield flickered to life, and Keri’s weapon skittered off it. The war-machine backhanded him with its free arm, and Keri’s head whipped to one side, blood flying from his mouth and nose, as he was thrown backward. He hit the floor and slid across it, coming to rest against the cold metal of the wall.

Keri managed to force his eyes open. If he was going to die here, he at least wanted to see it coming, and not cower away in fright.

A small dark shape shot out of the darkness, emerging from the corridor to race directly at the Antrian’s head. Before Keri could even comprehend what it was, the shape exploded into a mist of red vapor, through which the Antrian cut to no effect. The bloody mist coalesced just behind its neck into the form of a dark-haired woman in hunting leathers, stabbing two daggers down at the juggernaut’s back. Sparks struck off the impact of enchanted steel, and then the monster reached back to grab Wren and fling her off its back.

Again, the huntress dissolved into a formless mass of blood, then reformed into her human shape, boots planted on the floor of the corridor, set between Arjun and Keri, and the monster that was coming to kill them.

Keri hadn’t spent a great deal of time with Wren - perhaps a few words exchanged at Coral Bay, just before Liv’s grandfather had died. Her name had won them aid from the Red Shield tribe, in Varuna, but whatever trust he’d extended to her came entirely from the faith he had in Liv.

In that moment, he understood what Liv saw in the huntress.

The Antrian juggernaut loomed above her, nearly twice the woman’s size. She had nothing but two daggers, not even any armor to protect her. The war-machine, on the other hand, had layers of steel plate and a blade wider than her forearm, its edge gleaming blue with the power of its enchantments.

And yet, Wren Wind Dancer showed not the slightest sign of backing down. Though Keri was certain that she could have taken her bat form and escaped in a moment, every line on her body spoke only of an unyielding determination to fight.

The Antrian, impossibly, hesitated.

“What tribe?” it asked, the first time it had spoken, in what Keri recognized as a very old dialect of Vakansa. The voice was deep as a thrumming forge, as thunder rumbling over the mountains.

“Red Shield Tribe,” Wren answered.

The blue eyes of the Antrian, burning within the shadows of its steel helm, were now focused entirely on the huntress. “Why do you defend the rebels?” it asked.

“No one’s a rebel any more,” Wren answered. “The war ended twelve hundred years ago. The old gods died, and the world moved on.”

Keri staggered to his feet, and offered Arjun a hand. “Celris is dead,” he explained. They hadn’t a chance of defeating this monster in a fight, but every moment it was willing to listen to them talk was one more moment they were alive. “He’s been dead for a long time. We came here with one of his descendents, but got separated.”

“Impossible,” the behemoth rumbled, but it was still hesitating, and Keri thought he detected a hint of doubt in its mechanical voice.

“It’s true,” Wren said. “You think my people would have stopped fighting while there was still hope of winning? There’s hardly any of us left now. Ractia never designed us to last. Tamiris dropped a star right on their heads. Killed the only Vædim left.”

“Prove it,” the Antrian challenged her.

“Prove what? That the old gods are dead?” Wren shook her head. “How?”

“I know how,” Arjun broke in, clearly having managed to catch enough meaning to follow the tread of the argument. “We find Liv. She’s going straight to Celris’ corpse, isn’t she?”

Keri frowned. There was a lot they were leaving out - Wren might not know about Liv’s suspicions that some part of Celris lived, but she knew better than anyone that Ractia had returned. If the war-machine’s hesitation was based only on the belief that every one of the Vædim was gone, that was a flimsy foundation to keep them safe.

“My name is Inkeris ka Ilmari, of the Unconquered House of Bælris,” he introduced himself. “If you were there for the war, then you know that my family stood aside. Bælris left rather than fight. I’m not your enemy.”

The great metal helm swung toward him, expressionless, and Keri did his best to meet those burning blue eyes without flinching. “Children of a coward rather than a traitor,” it pronounced.

“I never met Bælris,” Keri admitted. “He was gone long before I was ever born. But neither my house nor I ever fought in that war. No one here did. It was done long ago. Generations have passed, even among the Eld.”

“Proof,” the war machine insisted.

“Come with us,” Keri pressed. “If you know this place, help us to find our friend. You served Celris?”

The titanic, armored head nodded silently.

“And if Celris is truly gone, who would you serve then?” Keri asked. “Would you serve his blood? The House descended from him?”

“I - do not know,” the machine admitted.

“Her name is Livara tär Valtteri,” Wren said. “She’s come for the key to this rift. We call it the Tomb of Celris - I don’t know what it was called in your time.”

“Nerkeis,” the Antrian rumbled. “The City of the North. I was - brought here. After the battle at Iuronnath. A great victory, but - I was dying. Celris promised to preserve me, in a deep sleep, while Antris rebuilt my body. That is the last thing I remember.”

“Iuronnath?” Wren’s voice was nearly a whisper. “You fought there? You knew the Beast, then?”

“The beast?” The war-machine turned to her. “I do not know.”

“That makes sense, actually,” Keri said. “Names like that come after the fact. At the time, people would have just referred to him by name. The commander of the Vædic forces. My father said that he was able to not just take bat form, but the forms of all manner of predators.”

Wren nodded. “My father can hunt as a jaguar, but they used to say the Beast could turn into a massive constricting snake, into a bear, all sorts of things. His name was -”

“Ghveris,” the Antrian rumbled. “His name is Ghveris.”

“You did know him, then!” Wren had the look of a child begging for stories of their favorite hero, Keri observed. It was strange to think of her that way - and to view the legends of the Beast through her eyes. To most of the Vakansa, the Beast of Iuronnath was a horror story - the epitome of the children of Raktia, a monster who rampaged through the ranks of the humans and the Eld alike. It was said he’d finally only been stopped by Miriam herself, and then only after killing the founder of House Staivis.

But to Wren and her people, the monster was a hero: a general who’d given his life in a doomed battle near the end of a losing war. “What was he like?” Wren asked, lowering her blades. Keri wasn’t quite ready to relax yet, but he also didn’t want to interrupt whatever bond or common ground she was forming with the Antrian.

The juggernaut turned its head away from them to look back down the corridor, and then into the chamber of ancient machinery where it had slept for so long. A long moment passed, not precisely of silence, but of quiet. The sigils on the walls pulsed blue, and steam hissed from the machinery of the mechanical cradle.

“Knew,” the war-machine rumbled. “No. I did not know.” It shifted its massive bulk around, turning back to Wren. “I am Ghveris, General of the Vædim. I am - what is left of him.”