The Mercury Revolts: Chapter 1
Landfall
Clotaire wrapped his armoured hand around a support beam on the bulkhead of the trieres. The heavy steel creaked as his fist tightened. How did it come to this? He thought with a weary exhale.
‘You shits have not seen war!’ Estienne growled behind Clotaire. His brother, Lord of Titan, paced before two thousand soldiers clad head to toe in a tonne of steel. ‘You may have fought in the wargames or the Arenas where medics are eager to stitch you up after a close call with a low energy vibro weapon,’ Estienne stopped and surveyed the impassive helms, black visors stared back. ‘But out here we fight with the real thing,’ he unsheathed the vibroglaive from his back, the three metre obsidian weapon hummed to life, a white hot edge singed the air. ‘This will take your arm and have the curtesy of cauterising the stump in one motion. Those from the Outer Territories know this, we play our wargames with real weapons. You Core pups have it easy, death is rare and seen as tragic in your Arena’s. Out on Titan, Io, Ganymede, it is the way of things. Contenders die everyday for want of glory!’
The trieres ship rocked as hundreds of rockets assailed its hull. The ten metre thick plating groaned and warbled. A static encased voice spoke into Clotaire’s ear. ‘The anti-air is more than we bargained for, Archon,’ Agamemnon Kapaneus said, Navarchos, and Eagle, of the Archon’s fleet.
‘The trieres will hold. Once we are down half the cannon will be neutralised for the second wave,’ Archon Clotaire Solus answered.
‘I’d be more comfortable if you weren’t leading the charge,’ Agamemnon said.
‘Then I would appear detached. We want to snuff this rebellion out, not fan it across the globes, Navarchos.’
Agamemnon Kapaneus grunted, ‘As you say, Archon.’ The static died.
‘Who here has taken life?’ Estienne asked. Twenty other trieres descended alongside them through Mercury’s atmosphere and these two thousand were blessed, or cursed, to descend with the Lord of Titan.
Four hundred arms go up, none as eager as Solon Adomaitis. Tagmartakhis of House Solus and commander of the Archon’s Guard.
Estienne smiled, his head small and lost within the plates of steel forming his Charge Armour. ‘The rest of you attach yourselves to these killers of men and learn. Remember to dodge the missiles all the while.’
Clotaire watched the clouds disperse ahead of them. Rockets bloomed like fireworks ahead of them, a thousand kinetic turrets shredding the ordinance before it ever reached the trieres. He turned and paced along the hard deck. ‘Are you trying to make them shit themselves?’ He whispered to his brother.
Estienne donned his helm, complete with twisted antlers and blood red visor. ‘Better they are used to the stench before the fight. Less distracting,’ he replied on a private channel. The ship rocked and tumbled through the air.
‘Sminagos, report,’ Clotaire said gripping onto a support beam.
‘Missile clipped our engines, Archon. Stabilising now. Touch down in three,’ the trieres sminagos said, a wobble to his voice.
The green sky of Mercury stretched across the horizon. Yellow clouds drifted across, thin and lazy. Great swathes of marsh land wrapped around the globe, spotted with forests and glades, hillocks and plains, slowly sinking into the colourful bog. Cities of stone erupted out of the ground, all crags and spires, warding back the marshland. Yulian with its three hundred metre high walls of white stone glistened in the evening sun, a beacon of civilisation amidst mother nature. The sides of a valley, higher than the walls, pinned the city in place. Beyond lay the fertile Gascon plains and the city of Minathia, home of the revolt. Home of the House of Jamshidi.
‘Ignite!’ Estienne roared stamping his glaive on the deck, denting the steel with its pointed foot. The sharp edge of two thousand obsidian swords, glaives, and axes, shone with a centimetre of superheated metal. Impassive helms stared at the trieres doors but Clotaire knew the sweat that dripped from foreheads, the fear that wormed in the gut.
The trieres pulled up for a split second and then dropped with a sudden urge. Hydraulics hissed steam and the doors flew open. The setting sun fell behind distant mountains casting dark greens and blues across the sky.
‘Forward!’ Clotaire bellowed hefting his vibrosword into the air as he leapt down into the marshland. He sank up to his knees in the bog. With a sucking sound Clotaire forged onward, the mechanicals of his Charge Armour grating and groaning with the effort. He climbed a tuft of earth and readied his jetpack. His suit checked for flammables nearby.
Estienne exploded out of the trieres with his Saturnalian soldiers sailing through the sky. Three became mist as a salvo caught up with them.
‘Fly lower!’ Clotaire barked at his brother and soldiers. Estienne banked towards the surface, under the detection of the anti-air cannons. The Archon’s HUD read the usual flammables. He dismissed the popup and launched into the sky at the head of one thousand of his own retinue. Solon Adomaitis at his side. The tall, hardy, grasses of the bog burst into flames that spread with the wind until a kilometre of marsh burned bright. The trieres creaked as it took off, water dripping from the underside.
Missiles sailed overhead from cannons hidden in the plains and buried in the walls of Yulian. Trieres dotted the landscape, sixty thousand soldiers along with them. The empty carriers launched into the sky, faster and more nimble without the cargo. Missiles carved the sky like shooting stars. Four of the trieres blossomed into raging infernos. Steel rained down.
‘Archon, a muster point?’ Solon asked, his voice a baritone husk.
Clotaire brought up a topological map on his HUD and dropped a pin on drylands behind a hill. Every soldier received the ping and converged on the same point. ‘Solon, take five hundred and scout a twenty kilometre perimeter. I want to know who approaches and with what.’
‘Of course, Archon.’ Solon peeled away with a contingent of armoured troops like a horde of black beetles skirting mere metres above the ground.
Estienne is first to the rendezvous. ‘Enemy soldiers approaching. Defensive formations!’ His voice crackles through the transmitters. The Saturnalian’s form ranks, the first row plant their glaives in the ground and angle the blades outward. The second balances the pole on the shoulders of the first row, the blades out ahead forming a spiked wall of molten metal.
Clotaire flared his jetpack, the rumbling energy shooting him towards the hill for cover. His soldiers split to add their numbers to the defensive ring formed around the Archon and his brother. A hundred soldiers join them, sheathe their melee weapons and arm themselves with massive rifles. Blue sparks leap across the barrels of the guns held in both hands, one clung to a handle on top and the other on the horizontal grip at the back of the gun. The one hundred survey the sky, weapons primed.
A flock of geese whistle overhead, calling out to others to flee the marshland for safer ground. Missiles explode in the atmosphere around the birds. Whistles became barks as the geese banked westward away from the Gascon Valley, source of the cannon fire.
‘Hold!’ Estienne barked from his perch near the crest of the hill. A gauntleted hand waved to the projectile crew. The one hundred crouch and scale the hill to wait behind the Lord of Titan.
Clotaire, vibrosword in hand, joined the east facing line. The soldiers parted for their Archon as he joined the front row of glaives, his sword grasped in both hands. Shoulder to shoulder they waited. The Archon’s breath echoed within his helmet. The ground thundered beneath him and the cries of enemy soldiers flitted in the wind. Insults, curses, and treachery broke from the enemies lips and crackled over the loud speakers in their armour.
‘Hold!’ Estienne repeated.
Seconds stretched to minutes stretching to days.
Clotaire counted his breaths. One… two… three.
‘NOW!’ Estienne roared. The air shivered and crackled with fury. The Zeus Cannons of the projectile crew ignited over the peak of the hill. The air flickered blue all around. The screams of the Mercurian’s clashed with the war cries as men and women where boiled alive in their suits of Charge Armour, overloaded with electrical current.
The enemy rounded the hill, undaunted by the deaths of their comrades. White edged swords sang in the air. Vibroblades bit into Charge Armour, the only weapon capable of piercing the heavy suits of armour. A crunch of steel and a barking of curses as the two forces crashed into one another. Clotaire slid back in the mud. A dozen vibroswords hacking away at the front row. The row behind the Archon speared in unison, their vibroglaives sliding back and forward along his pauldrons. A glaive pierced a Mercurian in the shoulder, smoke escaping from the molten hole in his shoulder. A scream broke his lips as he swung wildly. A second glaive speared him through the throat, his body falling limp and collapsing into the mud.
‘Step forward!’ Clotaire bellowed. His soldiers braced themselves and the front row was pushed forward by those behind. Stomping on the dead of friend and foe alike the Archon’s forces widened their circle of death. The man beside him buckled, three Mercurians slicing into his arms and then head. A woman behind filled the space, vibroglaive surging forth to catch one of the killers in the thigh. A trickle of blood spurted out and quickly dried from the heat of her weapon. The enemy slumped to one knee and a swift swing from a glaive saw his head fly through the air.
Clotaire hefted his vibrosword and roared for another advance. The spiked wall surged forward, splitting in parts but holding firm in the centre. He swung at the nearest Mercurian’s. Blades clashed, sparks fanned through the air. The revolters held firm and pushed into the glaives losing hundreds but diffusing the effectiveness of the long polearms. Duels broke out along the line. Two advanced on Clotaire, the golden sun emblazoned on his chest marking him as of House Solus. A blur of light crested his vision, swords swirling in the air. He parried both and stepped forward, breaking the line.
Chaos.
The Saturnalian troops surged forward, vibroglaives spinning through the air. The Core soldiers, the majority from Ceran launched into the air and landed amidst the grounded Mercurian revolters. The warriors of House Jamshidi and House Afolayan never adapting the jetpack into their Charge Armour, relying instead on distant ranged support. The air boomed with gunfire. Glints of light atop distant hills and forts the only sign of snipers. Bullets as large as a finger thudded into the airborne Ceran’s. One ripped through a jetpack, sending the soldier spiralling through the air before the fuel exploded obliterating the man inside. Chunks of steel rained down coated in gore.
Clotaire swung left, then right, forcing his two assailants into opposite rhythms. Blade struck blade. Feinting high and striking low he carved the leg from one and buried the sword into the shoulder of the other. Screams ruptured speakers and the pair fell to the dirt in eery silence clinging to their wounds. Soldiers of Estienne’s advanced skewering the almost dead and taking blades in the gut for it as Revolters advanced to plug the gap while Ceran’s devastated their centre. Any semblance of formation long evaporated.
Lightning arced over head catching on a Mercurian and spreading to his neighbours. Frozen in thunder smoke rose form their armour as joints seized, oil evaporated, and computer systems overloaded. Harrowing screams echoed within their helmets, loud enough to hear beyond before the Mercurian’s collapsed to the ground in a squelch of flesh, gore leaking from the armour.
Clotaire marched forward with his vibrosword high, his body ached. Aggressors approached. Rebels to his rule seeing the death of his father and his own ascension as opportunity. Clotaire was eighty three, middle aged by Ceran standards, but while his body ached only a little his mind was weary. Weary of knowing the changes the Helios System required. Weary of setbacks, of complications and roadblocks set by those with vested interest, and power, in the current zeitgeist. From Mercury to Pluto a thousand different grievances chafed against a hundred different structures. A cobbled together mess of unified humanity fraying at the edges. Clotaire imagined his House emblem tearing, the golden sun shorn in two, three, four pieces, and the endless war it require to piece it back together. Is the beginning of the end? He breathed heavily as a Mercurian charged at him, roaring like a lion. Clotaire stepped back, a vibroblade carving the air where he had stood, and with a thrift thrust ended the revolters life. The scent of burnt flesh overcame his helmets filters as he freed the blade, the enemy sagging to the earth.
‘Brother!’ Estienne shouted. ‘This is the last of them,’ he laughed and launched into the air. The Lord of Titan plummeted to the ground, vibroglaive twirling, landing amidst the enemy and carved a bloody path through the remaining rebels.
The Archon retreated a step to watch his soldiers decimate the remaining Jamshidi vanguard. Was this all they had? He knew it wasn’t.
Clotaire looked to the sky. His fleet wrestled with the smaller navies of House Jamshidi and Afolayan. The second wave of infantry would be loading up on the trieres transports that survived the first. His eyes drifted from the sky to the land where what was once green marsh buzzing with wildlife had become a graveyard. Thousands of men and women lay strewn across the land. Severed limbs clung to the grasses, blood pooled in the shallow waters, the dying croaked their last. Casualty statistics scrolled on his HUD. Of the sixty thousand who landed three thousand lay dead along with more than five thousand Mercurians. Early estimates, Clotaire hoped.
Behind him the stratigos and taxiarchos began to organise the construction of a command centre and camp. A massive affair for an army that would approach one hundred and twenty thousand in number. More if the Archon’s navy triumphed early. Clotaire knew it was not enough men to siege every city on Mercury but it was enough to capture the instigators of revolt — Araxa Jamshidi and his siblings, Zoputan Afolayan and the Houses of Osar and Besko. He had a suspicion the revolt was a snake and without Araxa it would die. Between Clotaire and Araxa lay Yulian, the plains of the Gascon Valley, the fortified city of Minathia, and an army rumoured to number anywhere up to half a million soldiers. A drop in the ocean for humanity able to touch the Kuiper belt and numbering upwards of fifty billion. War was meant to be a consignment of history books, a thing studied not practiced, but man created a game of it and unremedied discontent has one output.
Clotaire felt the gaze of his soldiers as he approached the stratigoi. Salutes rippled through the troops as they searched for the injured and erected pre-fab buildings. The Archon fought side by side, on the front lines, while the enemy leaders hide behind three hundred metre high walls. Clotaire could have avoided combat, avoided the surface and remained holed up in an octeres class ship but no. This Archon fought on the ground. Spilled blood. Risked his own life. Archon Solus returned each salute knowing his men and women would fight harder to prevent the spread of insurrection.
The stratigoi turned and saluted, their hand pressed to their hearts completed with a short bow of the head. Clotaire responded in turn, regarding his two sons in their new found positions. ‘Pepin, tell me the way of the wind?’
‘Father, images from orbit show a mass of soldiers, armoured and unarmoured, beyond Yulian. Cannons, tanks, dieres fighter ships.’
‘Dieres?’ Clotaire sounded gruff.
‘We think it’s a ruse. A disrupter field or a false image. Small errors, odd artefacts in the images,’ Lothaire, his eldest son, added. Strips of crimson bone curled over his helmet, a trident of antlers sprouting from the top. Skulls adorned each joint, screaming in terror.
Clotaire nodded as the camp grew around them. ‘We can’t do anything without a camp. I didn’t see any tanks on Jamshidi manifestos.’
‘I doubt any of the Houses have accurately reported in decades, father,’ Pepin said.
‘Rot spreads,’ Clotaire mumbled to himself. He would have to comb the data for discrepancies and have a legion of auditors to double check the Houses with oddities. It could take years and create more strife.
Small blips appeared on the horizon in an arrow formation burning hard for the camp. Clotaire adjusted his visor to get a closer look, Solon. His comms hissed, ‘Archon. Beasts incoming. Chimera and direwolves.’
Hair stood on end and a chill swept his body. Clotaire shared the report with his sons and brother. ‘How many?’ Lothaire asked.
‘Doesn’t matter. One or fifty we can take a beast of flesh and blood,’ Estienne barked as he landed beside them, the muddy earth splattering and cratering from the force of his jetpack. ‘Perimeter is secure, watches have been assigned. Jamshidi has snipers on the wall of Yulian. A handful of men have been lost.’
‘No one removes a single plate of armour until we are secure,’ Clotaire said.
‘They’re aiming for the eyes, brother.’
‘How big are the rounds?’ Pepin said, awe in his voice.
‘Longer than your finger and thick as your thumb,’ Estienne said.
Pepin whistled. ‘Our own snipers will be in position shortly. Some are looking forward to the hunt.’
‘Good but don’t waste lives, son.’
‘Of course, father.’
A quiet fell on the camp. Soldiers ceased their tasks as the ground shook beneath them. A roar filled the sky followed by a bleat. ‘CHIMERA!’ The cry went over open broadcast.
‘Organise the troops. Estienne take centre. Pepin have the ranged support pin down the snipers and cannons to the west. Lothaire take ten thousand out of camp on the east side. Stay low and wait for the beasts to engage us then surround and exterminate the direwolves first. Chimera second.’
‘Yes, father,’ his two sons saluted and set off to execute the Archon’s orders.
‘Estienne?’ Clotaire’s brother remained gazing over the camp.
‘Saturnalian’s on the front lines again?’ Estienne said, an edge to his words.
‘A mix of Ceran and Saturnalian.’
Estienne made a sound of acknowledgement, ‘Very well.’ His jetpack flared blue and he flew over the camp towards the northern wall.
Clotaire waited before joining his brother and brought up the friendly casualties list on his HUD. He filtered by globe. The list danced around for a few seconds before settling. He scrolled along the planets, Mercury and Venus were in the dozens. Earth, Lune, Mars, and Ceres had suffered hundreds of dead. Jupiter, nil. House Opeyemi had refused request for retinue sighting their own internal difficulties. Saturn, two thousand four hundred and eighty two, focussed on the moons of Titan and Rhea. Thousands more than the Ceran casualties. The Titans and Rheans are rash, like their Lord, Clotaire told himself.
Solon crested the camp wall with his scout team and landed around the Archon. Saluting as one the tagmartakhis stepped forward, ‘Report, Archon!’
‘What have you seen?’
‘Beasts approaching from the north. At least four chimera. No infantry support. Jamshidi has his Swoon clustered in caves south of Yulian’s walls. Afolayan has nothing this side of the wall.
‘Nothing?’ Clotaire cocked his head. ‘Strange.’
‘We thought the same. Tried nearing the walls but the snipers spotted us.’
‘Casualties?’
‘No just a few dents,’ Solon punched his arm where a sniper round ricocheted off leaving a crater in the Charge Armour.
‘Any armies approaching? Ships?’
‘Nothing, Archon.’
Clotaire nodded, ‘Good work, Tagmartakhis Adomaitis. Summon the rest of the Guard. Gather by the camp gates. Hold those Chimera at bay until Stratigos Lothaire Solus can surround and exterminate them. Report to Stratigos Estienne Solus for details.’
‘Yes, Archon!’ Solon saluted and turned on his heel. He marched towards the camp gate, soldiers joining him from the many pathways and roads formed around the pre-fabricated buildings that made up the camp. White walls shone with the emblem of House Solus, a golden sun on a blue and white background.
Clotaire took to the sky, staying below the hill peak, and landed on the camp walls. He crouched behind a merlon. Four chimera loped across the drier patches of marshland. Chimera were a cross of three beasts grown to grotesque proportions. The front half of the four legged beast was of a lion. The rear half was a goat, with a head that jutted out awkwardly midway down its spine. A scaled tail slithered and hissed behind, two black eyes peered out from the snake’s head at the tip of the tail. He couldn’t help but wonder where the Houses of Mercury had found such beasts. Clotaire was aware of companies capable of developing such a monstrous genus but the funds and time required was astronomical.
Amidst the front paws and rear hooves of the chimera ran wolves. Direwolves. As tall as a person and with teeth capable of chewing through Charge Armour. A snake tail hissed and snapped at a direwolf venturing too close to a chimera. Venom streaked from the teeth. The wolf leapt into the air and over the four metre tall chimera with ease. The goat head bleated, its slitted eyes tracking the grey furred wolf as it growled. The lion head roared causing thousands of Clotaire’s soldiers to cower in terror against their will. Clotaire hunkered down feeling the worst of the sound trickle down his spine.
Projectile rounds cracked the air around Clotaire. Pepin’s ranged support units had opened fire both on the beasts approaching and at the city walls. Direwolves hopped and skirted the bullets. Blood erupted in short lived fountains from a chimera’s back, the thick hide and thicker muscle preventing anything piercing deeper than a few centimetres. Clotaire ignited his vibrosword. Estienne barked at his men and women while he patrolled the front lines behind the camp walls. Ranged support rained down from the camp wall. A handful of direwolves perished but dozens more sprinted along.
The first direwolf approached the wall and slid to a halt staring up at the wall. It hunched back, howled, and jumped. A blur of white and grey fur thick with mud arched over the camp wall and landed, teeth barred, amidst the rank and file. Swords and glaives flared and hacked at the beast but it was already leaping away and clawing at anyone in its way. Glass shattered as a claw raked through the visor of one soldier, eyes torn out. He screamed and fell to his knees holding his bleeding head. The direwolf clamped its jaw around another’s arm, its teeth piercing the Charge Armour and tasting flesh. Vibroswords chopped and the wolf became a blur, darting between the soldiers. Six more direwolves leapt the wall and havoc broke out throughout the front most ranks. The camp buildings separated thousands of soldiers from the action. The camp walls had failed in their task and now prevented Lothaire from surrounding the beasts.
‘Get down!’ A ranged soldier shouted across the wall. A hundred ran or jumped from the wall. A chimera roared and threw itself into the camp gate. The wall shuddered and cracked. The pre-fab materials meant for repelling bullets and men, not twenty tonnes of hardened bone and claw. The beast reared back and slammed into the gate a second time. A crack like the sound of bone breaking splintered the wall. A third charge and the gate exploded inward while the wall teetered. The chimera barrelled into Solon’s unit gnashing and tearing through men like straw.
Clotaire ran along the top of the wall towards the chimera as it slashed its way through his men. The wall creaked and leaned into the camp bathing the battlefield in shadow. The wall cracked ahead and a chunk thirty metres long collapsed on top of hundreds of Ceran infantry. Their Charge Armour would protect them but some would be trapped for hours under there. Clotaire jumped from the wall. Vibrosword in both hands and the point aimed for the chimera’s spine. A blur of scales and he was jarred off his trajectory. Venomous teeth clamped around him. He struggled as the snake’s jaw locked and gradually tightened around him. He was carried high into the air, the snake tail holdings its prize high above the battlefield.
‘The Archon! Save the Archon!’ Solon bellowed. Men and women launched into the air to hack at the chimera’s tail. The beast spun swiping with hoof and paw. Soldiers flew too high and tumbled to the ground, the crack of a sniper rifle echoing in the wake. Visor glass rained down.
Clotaire hacked left and right feeling his vibrosword hit the serpents body, scales melting and detaching from the intense heat. The tail hissed around him and bit harder. The Archon felt his armour deform. A hiss of air told him a tooth had pierced the outer layer. His legs hung out one side of the serpent’s mouth, his head from the opposite. One arm pinned between two long pointed teeth. His sword arm free and swinging. A spike of panic overcame Clotaire as his mind wondered what what happen if his jetpack was punctured. Would the fuel ignite and explode? Would it leak out and kill the beast? Or will I be sent on an uncontrollable flight? He didn’t wait for an answer. Clotaire turned his jetpack on and felt the snake’s jaw shudder, teeth scraped along his Charge Armour gouging into the metal and chipping paint. He shifted to full burn and felt his left arm slip out from the snake’s bite. Clotaire brought his sword up in both hands and slashed at the snake’s head. The blade bit into the scales shattering them like glass and revealing pale pink flesh below. A black beady eye focussed on Clotaire. The jaw tightened. A tooth punctured his armour, the cold wet bone slid against his skin. His jetpack sputtered out. The lion head roared and with a swipe of its paw sent twenty men sprawling. Clotaire lifted his vibrosword for another attack. The serpent hissed and ragged Clotaire through the air releasing him on the fifth sway of the head. Clotaire flew through the air, his jetpack failed to ignite, and he crashed into the marshland beyond the camp walls. In range of the sniper fire.
The Archon was on his back. Blood leaked from puncture wounds in his torso and thighs. The undersuit tightened around him, constricting blood flow and helping to stop the bleeding but nothing would stop the venom if it had entered his veins. There was no way to check. Clotaire lay still and figured he would be dead in minutes or he wouldn’t. His life was in Chronos’s hands. Dank stagnant water seeped in through the holes in his suit. He arched his neck back to find he was behind a mound of reeds and grasses. If he moved the Jamshidi snipers would see him. They would have seen him careen through the air and might have sent a unit out, if any had spotted who was flying through the air. Clotaire laid still.
Shouting and howling sounded from the camp. Lothaire’s soldiers had rounded the corner of the camp and where advancing along the ground, tucked against the camp wall.
‘Lothaire,’ Clotaire opened a channel to his eldest.
‘Father, I’m approaching the camp gates.’
Clotaire pinged his location, ‘I’m pinned down.’
Lothaire halted ten metres from an opening in the camp wall, ‘Why the blazes are you out there?’
‘A tussle with a chimera.’
Lothaire cursed and said, ’Lucky you haven’t been shot by the Jamshidi.’
‘They can’t see me, unless I move. Get your troops into the fight and put those wolves down,’ Clotaire grimaced. Pain laced through his thigh.
‘I’ll have Pepin provide covering fire and come and rescue you. Can you fly?’
‘Jet’s busted.’
Lothaire waved his soldiers on. The armour clad soldiers stormed their own camp, vibroswords swinging at unsuspecting direwolves and chimera.
‘Archon! Where are you?’ Solon said in his ear. ‘Map info is blank.’
‘No information the enemy can hack, you know that. I’m out in the marsh. Behind cover. Lothaire will see me safe,’ Clotaire said.
Solon grumbled something about Estienne and ended the connection. Clotaire switched off his vibrosword and prayed his soldiers would overcome the chimera and direwolves before the Houses of Mercury launched further attacks. The question was why they hadn’t yet. He gazed up at the sky where streaks of shrapnel burned like comets through the atmosphere as the orbital battle raged on. Ships descended through the clouds. Harangued by the surface-to-air cannons the trieres transported tens of thousands of troops to the surface of Mercury. Missiles tore towards them, many shot down by kinetic defence turrets, a few slipped through exploding against the multiple-metre thick hulls. The trieres continued on.
A chimera roared.
Clotaire closed his eyes and bore the brunt of the noise as it washed over him. His HUD flashed with a message “Internal Charge Armour integrity secure.” Clotaire opened his eyes and was face to face with the muzzle of a lion. Its nose sniffed at him. The goat half hung at an odd angle, one yellow split eye gazing down at him. Clotaire gripped his vibrosword tighter, the blade cooling, he tensed his arm and in a flash thrust the sword up into the beasts neck. The chimera reeled back dragging Clotaire with it. The Archon flicked the switch of his vibrosword. The chimera hissed and bleated while the lion’s eyes where wide with fear. The superheated weapon cooked the lion’s throat from the inside. It wrestled and pawed at Clotaire who refused to let go of the weapon. Rifle fire cracked in the air. Spurts of blood erupted from the chimera causing it to madden further. Clotaire gripped his sword with both hands and yanked to the right. The blade carved through flesh and caught on the hardened skull of the beast. Gore dropped from the beast. The beast sucked down air that escaped through the wound. It blinked and its front paws clawed at the earth as it collapsed. The front half at least. The snake reared back and hissed, its’ forked tongue slithering between its teeth, before snapping down at Clotaire. He freed his sword and jumped over the muzzle the same size as him. The snake caught a chunk of the lion’s flesh. The lion yelped soundlessly and pawed at the ground.
‘Father!’ Lothaire’s voice crackled through the comms.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ Clotaire panted. ‘No one told me these things don’t die.’ The goat attempted to stand. Rear legs trembled and sagged back down to ground. The goat bleated and bit the lion’s ear. The lion didn’t react.
‘But you’ve immobilised it. That’s something. Reports say one is dead, two are still loose. The direwolves have been dealt with,’ Lothaire said.
‘Good. Ranged support?’
‘Not available. One of the chimera charged straight for the snipers and Pepin is pinned down near the hill west of camp.’
‘Relieve your brother. I will manage,’ Clotaire said as the snake’s teeth snapped beside his head. Venom and spittle splashed over reeds reducing them to mulch. Grass blackened and pools of water turned blood red.
‘But father!’ Lothaire protested.
‘That’s an order!’
‘Yes, Archon.’
Clotaire watched the snake sway in the air, mouth open. Red throat expanding and contracting with each hiss. The snake lunged. Clotaire swung. His blade caught the yellow scaled beasts eye. The black bead throbbed, bulged, and burst. Ichor and scales exploded off the snake as it reeled back, blood dribbling down one side of its head. The goat half kicked and shunted the limp lion half through the marsh. Clotaire was thrown forward by the sheer weight of the unnatural creature. Face down in a pool of water a trickle of fear wormed through his mind. He snubbed it out before it could administers any killing thoughts. He rolled over, sword in hand, and caught the snake by the teeth. The sharp bone melted against the heat of the vibrosword but the snake pushed harder. The mechanics of his armour groaned. Clotaire held his sword by the tip, the heat of the blade burning his own gauntlet. He pushed back.
‘Archon!’ Solon bellowed. A blur in the air. A white streak passed Clotaire’s vision. Rifle fire boomed from the wall as Solon streaked across the marshland. The snake spasmed. A straight line of blood ringed its neck. Clotaire extended his arms to shove the snake back. The head slid free with a wet slop. The headless tail fell limp across the body of the chimera. The goat bleated and kicked to no avail.
Solon wheeled around and landed in the cover of the, mostly, corpse. ‘Are you injured?’
‘A little but nothing life threatening.’
Solon eyed the puncture wounds in Clotaire’s armour, ‘You sure, Archon?’
‘I am.’
‘Good. Pepin has triumphed over the last chimera. The camp’s a ruin.’
Clotaire looked to the sky. The trieres where ten minutes out, or more. ‘Pointless retaining this position now. You said the Swoon were in caves along the valley entrance?’
‘Yes. A good defensible position. Likely networks of tunnels inside the valley too. Snipers on the wall won’t see us there either.’
‘Excellent, Tagmartakhis. Direct the trieres further south. We shall test the skill of the Jamshidi Swoon and see if it matches the legend.’
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