CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
MAELUN CITY WALLS: 2 days and seven hours before Earth forces arrive.
His robes snagged as he climbed to the top of the wall and began to shout and address the crowd below.
“Citizens of Maelun, hear me now. Why fight when there is no hope? Why struggle when there is no path to victory?”
“The Great Nox Queen offers you your lives and all she asks in return is for you to bend a knee. Her war machines will stop raining fire on your homes. And no more of your sons and daughters need to die.”
“You there!” The kobold pointed. “I’ve bent a knee, why will you not? Is it not better to know your place amongst betters? It’s better to live than to die?”
“For centuries, our people have fought this futile fight. And now all that remains of our once great people lies here under siege. Will you let this place be the tomb of our entire civilization? If you’re not with us, you will die here.”
“Is it not better to kneel and live? The Queen has spoken the truth, and the truth is, you are alone. As we speak, your leaders have barricaded themselves, abandoned you.
“You are alone. You are…” The sound of the man’s gurgling could be heard across the crowd as Tony slid her blade the rest of the way across his throat before kicking the man off the wall to the dirt.
Jack stepped up onto the wall and pulled his hood back, flanked by Tony, Maddie, and Erica. The girls also pulled their hoods back on their cloaks as the crowd looked upon the four strangers. Jack’s voice rang out across the crowd. “Hear me, my people, my blood, my kin. You are not alone. And no longer are your pleas and cries into the void going unanswered.”
Two kobolds pulled dark blades from their coats as they moved in on Jack and his squad. The blades were of obvious Nox design. And before the first of the traitors could even open his mouth to shout whatever was sure to be an insult at Jack, Maddie and Erica dispatched them both with their wrist darts and their bodies fell from the wall.
A voice cried from the crowd, “Who are you to make such a claim!”
“My name is Jack,” he called out. “And I am from Earth. A world once colonized long ago by our people. And now we find ourselves back on this world, only to find our great civilization on its knees. What say you Maelun? Do you still have the will to fight? Where are your leaders?”
Tony leaned over, whispering to Jack. “You’re pouring it on a little thick.”
A young kobold pushed to the front of the crowd. “I’ll take you to them,” the boy said. Jack and the girls followed the young kobold towards the center of town. The boy stopped them at the end of an alley, cautiously peeking around the corner towards what appeared to be a capitol building.
Explosive shot rained down from the sky all around them setting the city ablaze. Screams echoed through the streets, and for the first time Jack and his Viṣakanyā saw the Reaper horrors as the alien constructs poured through the gates and into the city.
Jack quickly turned to Erica. “Return to Bishop and give a report of what is happening, and find your way back. Tell the Ward to return Bishop to our forces. They will need to make haste.”
Without a word, Erica disappeared into the darkness of the alley.
The little kobold pulled a small club from his belt, ready to assist. “It’s okay, young one. Go protect your family.” Jack looked to the ground for a moment, and met the young kobold’s eyes. “If your family is gone than protect another.”
The young kobold’s eyes widened. “How will you defeat so many?” he whispered.
Tony knelt beside the young kobold. “You ask the wrong question, little one. Why have the Reapers brought so few? Now run.”
The young kobold bolted down the alley as Tony and Maddie pulled their kris knives and Jack drew his chakram. One of the four-legged constructs mounting a dart launcher moved into the middle of the square and began lobbing kinetic darts into the front of a building. Jack threw the circular blade into the launcher where it wedged into the spinning wheels, causing the device to smash itself into pieces violently. He drew his kopesh, and while moving past the ruined monster, severed the front limbs from the construct as it came crashing to the ground.
“Stay low and move fast. Split up and I will meet you inside the capitol building,” Jack ordered.
The three Viṣakanyā moved from shadow to shadow, appearing long enough to dispatch the smaller spider constructs as they made their way toward their objective.
Maddie had moved toward the back of the building and found three kobolds wielding blades similar to the traitors they’d dispatched on the wall. The kobolds seemed to be trying to plant some kind of explosive charge on the back of the building.
Maddie walked up to the group, pulled her hood back to reveal her face, and when the first kobold turned to address her she shoved her kris knife up through the bottom of his throat, drawing it back down out of the top of his head. Her other hand drove the second blade into the temple of another. The remaining kobold charged; she fired three darts from her wrist launcher into his face before stabbing both kris through the top of his head. She kicked the corpse off her blades, resheathed them, and pulled her hood back up.
On the other side of the street, Tony had been moving along the side of the broken and burning buildings when she heard whimpers and screams coming from a boarded-up shop. She slipped through a broken window and moved silently toward the front. In the corner she found three young female kobolds cowering as another kobold threatened them with a club.
“This city belongs to the Nox Queen,” the assailant sneered. “But you belong to me tonight.”
“Oh, can I play too?” Tony said.
As the assailant turned, Tony crossed her kris knives across his neck, cutting deep enough to almost decapitate him.
“It’s okay, young ones. I know it’s not a pleasant sight, but he wont be hurting any of you. You’re safe for now. I need you to leave this place as soon as it’s clear. In the meantime, hide yourselves and stay out of the streets.”
The oldest of the girls nodded.
Tony pulled her hood back up, and slipped back into the shadows.
At the front of the Capitol building, a larger spider construct didn’t notice Jack walk up behind it. The monster savagely tore at the front of the structure. Jack waited until the spider breached the front doors before dragging his kopesh from the construct’s front to its rear, splitting it in two, and stepping through it and into the hole the spider had made for him. Behind him, through the broken doors, countless spiders swarmed the square and were rushing the building. Jack pulled the small device Kyle had given him, tore off the pin, twisted the top, and rolled the grenade into the courtyard. Moments later, an explosion rocked the space, shaking the building as dust and debris rained down from the ceiling and walls. As the smoke settled, he watched for a moment to make sure that it was clear and began making his way up the stairs.
Parts rained down the stairwell as Maddie followed them down, meeting Jack on the second floor from the third. Moments later a broken glass window shattered as Tony kicked her way in. The three almost casually approached a set of wooden doors that were surely barricaded from the inside. Jack pounded on the door three times.
“Leaders of Maelun, I am Jack of the Kobold Earth colony. We have come to bring your city relief. Is there nobody inside who can talk with me?”
“You lie,” a voice rang from inside the room. “There are no more kobold colonies. They’re all dead. They’ve been dead for a millennia.”
“And yet here I am,” Jack replied. “This is a debate I’m happy to have, but I’d rather not do it trapped in this building with you. We have cleared the Nox Reaper constructs from the square, but they will return, and in greater numbers.”
Through the door the rogues could hear arguing and bickering. “How do we know this isn’t a trap?” one asked. “And that you’re not one of the traitorous Kobolkai?”
Maddie spoke up. “Is that what you call the kobolds that have sided with the Reapers? Jack, I killed three more of them on the side of the building where they were trying to plant charges.
“We killed three on the wall,” Jack said.
“I killed another one trying to…” Tony hesitated. “Let’s say I killed another one.”
“We have killed seven of these KobolKai, as you call them. Jack said through the door. One of them wore a long black and red robe.”
“You killed Jonas?” a voice demanded from the other side of the door.
“Well, either the act of slitting his throat killed him, or the fall from the wall, but if he survived either of those I’m sure the poison on my blade finished the job,” Tony said.
“You’re assassins!” another voice from inside said.
“Hey!” Maddie pounded her fist on the door. “I’m not an assassin!”
“I’m complicated!” she said, earning a grin from Tony as Jack shook his head.
Jack sighed. “You’re not helping.”
” Please, unbar the door and come with us. I want to get you to safety. You can ask all the questions you want, but I’m not going to be able to protect you in this building.”
There was more commotion inside, arguing and the sound of objects being pushed away from the doors. One of the doors unlatched and opened enough for a small head to peek around the corner. The young kobold was surprised to see the two rogues with their hoods down before he looked up at Jack.
“Listen, young one. We won’t save this city hiding in there, will we?” Jack said.
The young kobold’s eyes widened as he pushed the door open enough to reveal the room: injured kobolds, some sick and dying, elderly, and children.
“Well, shit,” Tony said. “This is a complication.”
An elderly kobold woman approached the door cautiously. “You said you could save us? Will you save all of us? I am the Matriarch of Maelun. Are you really of Earth?”
“I am, Matriarch,” Jack said, bowing in respect.
“You have to understand that the ancient colonies of the kobold Empire were lost to us more than a millennia ago, when our world was besieged.”
“Are there many kobolds on Earth? How did you reach us?” the Matriarch asked.
“Matriarch, that is a complicated question to answer. What I can tell you is that yes, there are many kobolds of Earth. I’ll give you more details, but first we must get your people to safety before the Reapers respawn their constructs and attack again.”
As Jack spoke a spider construct hiding on the ceiling dropped to the floor and bounded directly for the Matriarch. Jack ducked as Maddie drew one of her kris knives and stabbed the spider through its center mass, pinning it to the floor inches before it could reach the city’s leader.
“Jack, these things are pissing me off,” Maddie said.
“Matriarch, the square is clear for the moment. Send a runner to wherever we can find able-bodied people who can help move those who can’t move on their own. Maddie and Tony will stay here and protect them. You are coming with me, along with anyone else who can move but isn’t able to help move others.”
The kobolds recovered and sprang into action. The young one who had opened the door bolted down the stairs and into the square. A few minutes later he returned with ten to fifteen able-bodied townspeople who helped evacuate the capitol. They moved deeper into the city, into a cellar under what used to be a large bakery where a makeshift triage had been set up for the sick and wounded coming in from all over.
“Matriarch, tell me what happened before we arrived.”
“The last of our city guard were overrun when several Kobolkai attacked them from behind while they were fending off the monsters from the walls. They were able to get the gates open, and we barely had time to barricade ourselves into the building. We had been using the bottom floor of the capitol as a makeshift hospital. We don’t have many fighters left.”
“How many people are left in the city?” Tony asked.
The Matriarch looked at Tony with sad eyes. “Five hundred cycles ago, over fifteen million kobolds lived in this metropolis. There are now maybe a little over a thousand. I wasn’t alive when they built the wall around the center of the city, but it’s all that’s left of the great Maelun.”
“Now you,” the Matriarch said, turning to Jack, “tell me these terms you bring from Earth.”
Jack explained the terms and was surprised to find the Matriarch familiar with events happening on their world. She knew of the Ascendancy and of the greater galactic politics at play more than Gavin, Jack suspected.
“So you’re saying Earth was attacked and was to suffer the same fate as our world but found a way to join the Ascendancy?” she gasped, leaning back in the chair. Wonder and fear fought across her face at the realization of who and what Jack and the rogues were.
“Did.. Did you come here via a cradle?” she asked.
Jack could see the realization in the Matriarch’s eyes. “No, we did not.”
“Are you Spirit-Born?” She asked in almost a whisper.
“I don’t know this term, Matriarch.”
“We were brought here by the Architect Gavin Daniels. We are of Earth, and we volunteered for this fight.”
“Yes, of course, you would have to,” the Matriarch said, seeming out of breath.
“These are concepts you should talk to our Ward or to the Architect about; you may know more than they do.”
“So you were sent here to offer an alliance with Earth. You understand if Earth falls in the Ascendancy we’re right back where we started: with no hope and no future. The kobold species will end.”
Jack stood, his voice hardening. “If the kobold species dies on this world, we will die fighting.”
The Matriarch put her hands up. “Please, Jack, I didn’t mean any disrespect. I’m old now. It’s just my age that has allowed me to live long enough to remember the stories we were told. You need to understand that Spirit-Born and the colonies of Earth are things of legend and myth. From our perspective, the ghosts of our past have returned to try and save us.”
Jack’s voice softened and he reached a hand out to the Matriarch. She took Jack’s hand and he helped her up.
“I am no ghost, Matriarch. The forces of Earth march on Maelun. If the kobolds of this world wish to accept Earth’s terms and become the first member of a new alliance, the protections that shield the Earth will benefit this world as well.”
“Aedaea,” the Matriarch said. “This world is called Aedaea.” Still holding Jack’s hand, she rose and spoke loud enough for everybody to hear, “Jack of Earth, I am Anithea of Aedaea, Matriarch of Maelun and the last surviving member of the Kobold Council. It is my greatest honor to meet you, ancestor.”
Jack looked to the corner of the room and saw a cloaked figure crouched over a table.
“Forgive me, Matriarch. I must attend to a visitor,” he said.
Jack walked over and sat on the other side of the table. “Ward,” he said, looking up at the cloaked figure.
“Was I that obvious?” ARi asked.
“Not at all. In fact, it’s quite clever to disguise yourself as one of us.”
“Was it my projection that gave me away?”
“No, Ward. It was your smell, or the lack thereof.”
“Jack, I sent Erica back to you. She ran into a little trouble, but nothing she can’t handle. She’s going to circle around and make sure nothing followed her. She told me your report, but before I leave I wanted to see for myself. I don’t have long, and I don’t want to risk Bishop being spotted by the enemy. Tell me what you’ve learned before I head back to the others.”
Jack gave ARi a full report. Before his eyes, ARi’s projection faded and she was gone. He turned to find the Matriarch standing behind him, her eyes wide.
“Jack, your Ward is a guide? Guides do not leave their territory.”
“Matriarch, if we are to be allies, you should know now that Earth does not always play by the rules,” Jack said with a grin.