We didn’t reach Quicksilver himself, but Victra relayed news that Sevro’s gamble worked. A little more than a third of the Martian defense fleet is under control of the Sons of Ares and Quicksilver’s Blues. Thousands of the Society’s best troops are trapped on Phobos, but the Jackal is hitting back hard, taking personal command of the remaining ships and recalling forces from the Kuiper Belt to reinforce his depleted fleet.
The rest of the Golds we located through the station’s biometric sensor map in the lower levels. One practicing with her razor in the training rooms. She saw my face and dropped her blade in surrender. Reputation is a fine thing sometimes. The remaining two Golds we found in the monitoring bays, shifting back and forth between the cameras. They’d only just discovered that the footage was archival from three years before.
Now, all our Gold captives wear magnetic handcuffs and are tied together by long pieces of rope from Sefi’s griffin, all gagged, all glancing around at the Spires like we’ve dragged them into the mouth of hell itself.
Obsidians of the Spires flock to us in the halls. Rushing from the deeper levels to see the strange sight. Most would only have seen their gods from a distance, as flashes of gold streaking over the spring snow at mach three. Now we come among them, our pulseShields distorting the air, our shuttle’s pulse cannons melting open the huge iron doors which closed off the griffin hangar from the cold. The doors melt inward like the door on the
This is not how I intended to bring the Obsidians into my fold. I wanted to use words, to come humbly, in seal skin, not armor, putting myself at the mercy of the Obsidians to show Alia that I valued her people’s worth. Valued their judgment, and was willing to put myself in peril for them. I wanted to do as I preached. But even Ragnar knew that was a fool’s errand. And now I don’t have time for intransigence or superstition. If Alia will not follow me to war, I’ll drag her to it, kicking, screaming, like Lorn before her. For Obsidian to hear, I must speak in the only language they understand.
Might.
Sefi fires her pulseFist past my head at the doors leading to her mother’s sanctuary. The ancient iron buckles. Bent and twisted hinges screaming. We flow past an army of prostrate giants who clutter the cavernous halls to either side. So much strength made frail by superstition. Once, when they were stronger, they tried to cross the seas. Built mighty knarrs to carry explorers across the oceans to seek out new lands. The Carved monsters the Golds sowed in the oceans destroyed each boat, or the Golds themselves melted them from the sea. The last boat sailed more than two hundred years ago.
We come upon Alia as she sits in council with her famed seven and seventy warchiefs. They turn to us now amidst large, smoking braziers. Huge warriors, with white hair to the waists, arms bare, iron buckles on waists, huge axes on backs. Black eyes and rings studded with precious metals glitter in the low light. But they’re too stunned by the sight of the three-hundred-year-old iron doors suddenly glowing orange and melting away to speak or kneel. I draw up before them, still dragging the corpses of the Golds behind me. Mustang and Sefi hurl their captured Golds forward, kicking out their legs. They sprawl on the ground and stumble to their feet, attempting beyond all reason to maintain some dignity here surrounded by giant savages in the smoky room.
“Are these gods?” I roar through my helmet.
No one answers. Alia moves slowly through the parting warlords.
“Am I a god?” I snarl, this time removing my helmet. Mustang and Sefi remove theirs. Alia sees her daughter in the armor of her gods and she flinches back. Fear whispers over her lips. She stops near the five bound and gagged Golds as they finally find their feet. They stand over two meters tall. But, even bent and old as Alia is, she’s a head taller than I. She stares down at the men and women who were once her gods before looking up at her last daughter. “Child, what have you done?”
Sefi says nothing. But the razor on her arm slithers, drawing the eyes of every Obsidian. One of their greatest daughters carries the weapon of the gods.
“Queen of the Valkyrie,” I say as if we had never met. “My name is Darrow of Lykos. Blood brother of Ragnar Volarus. I am the warlord of the Rising, which rages against the false Golden gods. You have all seen the fires that rage around the moon. Those are caused by my army. Beyond this land in the abyss, a war rages between slaves and masters. I came here with the greatest son of the Spires to bring the truth to your people.” I wave to the Golds, who stare at me with the hatred of an entire race. “They struck him down before he could tell you that you are slaves. The prophets he sent told it true. Your gods are false.”
