Rusted Heroes Read online

  Rusted Heroes

  Andrew Post

  Medallion Press, Inc.

  Published 2016 by Medallion Press, Inc., 4222 Meridian Pkwy., Suite 110, Aurora, IL 60504

  is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

  Copyright © 2016 by Andrew Post

  EPUB Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  The Squad

  Summerend 21st: Year 167, 9th Age

  Harvest 13th: Year 173, 9th Age

  Wasted Years

  Hero of the Day

  I Remember You

  Ghosts of War

  Breaking the Law

  Flesh & Blood

  Back in the Saddle

  Behind the Wall of Sleep

  Bad Reputation

  Nothin’ but a Good Time

  Train in Vain

  No One Is Innocent

  Mother of Mercy

  Paranoid

  Who Made Who?

  The Chase Is Better Than the Catch

  Here I Go Again

  Summerend 3rd: Year 175, 9th Age

  Wind of Change

  Acknowledgments

  Soundtrack

  “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”

  —F. Scott Fitzgerald

  “I don’t see why there should be a point where everyone decides you’re too old. I’m not too old, and until I decide I’m too old I’ll never be too fucking old.”

  —Lemmy Kilmister

  The Squad

  Anoushka Demaine: Tank Squadron Captain

  Kylie-Nae Browne: Cannon Master & Medic

  Russell Ironbeird: Spotter & Copedaler

  Zuther Fuath: Pedaler & Cannon Aide

  Matthew Coonan: Forward Scout

  Peter Elloch: Rear Guard

  Written by:

  Ruprecht LeFevre II

  Summerend 21st

  Year 167, 9th Age

  Dead leaves shook from branches. Rocks danced in the road. Joan, seventy-five tons of steel and mithril, approached, rumbling the world blurry.

  In the captain’s seat, Anoushka Demaine rolled up her sleeves, took off her brain bucket, and felt a hundred degrees lift away. With the tank’s armored flanks raised, the wind lashed her raven hair, wild.

  With the track smooth ahead, a new dread replaced the worry of potholes and tricky curves: herself.

  Doubting herself was easy—not that she ever let it show—but doubting her team? Impossible. Within Joan, they were something else; just throwing their cannon’s long shadow over any quarry implied Need us to even load it? The answer was often You’re right—never mind.

  Often.

  Not always.

  This next target wasn’t their usual outlaws lying low in the Ranges. No, this was from high up. Direct, from the Ma’am. Big.

  Since she’d taken the throne in the hundred forty-third year of this age, our queen, our Ma’am, Ursula Stellen-Austenhoff, had spat small threats from a distance, over Burned Mountain, to War King Haine Skivvit. They’d been idle, as always, until two months ago when the Ma’am’s twin nephews, while on holiday, had been gunned down while putting the finishing touches on a sand castle. A paper flag fell, never staked.

  Caught and strung up, under the sharpshooter’s crude burlap mask, was the emerald-skinned countenance of an orc. A bold move for the War King. The twins weren’t military; they were seven. Total war was declared, loud and wide, before either small body had grown cold.

  Because a contractor during wartime could name their price, Anoushka’s crew went for 100 julas a day. The Ma’am’s penny-pinchers got them down to eighty. But it was still war, not some afternoon kerfuffle. Long-term. Years, maybe. A quick vote and off they went, forced huzzahs all around—Anoushka’s most of all. Merely thinking that word, war, knotted her guts.

  Hoping to sponge some courage, she surveyed her team at their stations before her. Were their nerves fraying too, or were they looking that ragged because they’d been pickling their worries in ale?

  The wind, while nice to Anoushka, was annoying their cannon master Kylie-Nae Browne. The blonde gal massaged her temples, keeping uncharacteristically quiet, squinty: picture of a hangover.

  Russell Ironbeird and Zuther Fuath, in the tank’s pedalers’ pits, looked as if they were negotiating their breakfasts against repeat appearances. Like all firm friends, they were in constant soft competition. Drink for drink last night, and the tempo at which they pedaled today: barely bare minimum.

  Anoushka tugged down the periscope. Matthew Coonan cantered ahead, helm off, carrying their royal patron’s banner: amber falcon, black field. The gold stitching caught the suns, shining near as bright as his smile.

  He was handsome. Knew it too. It was good Matthew rode outside; less distraction for their cannon master.

  It didn’t require clairvoyance; the grunts and giggles issuing from the scout’s tent at each camp said it all. The rest, around the fire, trying not to listen, would smile and shake their heads, because of course. Though compatriots, they were still men and women. You can rely on drink only as a method of escape yourself. A tough request, indeed, preventing a dalliance in any isolated group, but certainly theirs—the residual heat after a hard-won fight that sinks into the guts, then lower—whereupon it’d demand prompt, hissing extinguishing. Long as Matthew and Kylie-Nae kept their heads on straight, no harm. Both adults, neither wed nor engaged to be.

  With a thumb switch, Anoushka clicked to rear view, and her smirk from thinking about tiny romances died.

  In the tank’s rising dust, the parolee berserker rode. Black steel head-to-toe, faceplate down. Peter Elloch. Contractors taking a prisoner of the realm as charge meant every shop in Rammelstaad was holding an ongoing Everything-Must-Go sale—should the living coupon remain breathing, of course. They could dump him back onto the warden’s steps anytime. She’d told Peter this once—after a few. To this, he had simply stared, never confirming whether he’d heard her. Not soft-headed or mute. Just his way.

  Though if someone twisted her arm, Anoushka might agree Peter did have uses. Need a fella axed into halves? Peter, if you’d please. He was good at that.

  Near as spooky as a look from Peter was one from his dog. The Yorna Flats wolfhound, Teetee, keeping time with his master’s steed, marked each inch of the trip with foamy dribble. Loyal to a fault, perhaps Throat Tearer refused to reckon Peter as anything less than festooned in beams of glory. Low bar for a dog’s approval. Scraps and the occasional scratch behind the ear.

  But even if Teetee could ignore the red stamps covering his master’s permanent record, Anoushka wouldn’t, couldn’t. Rumor went Peter’s wife, Marianne, didn’t even look human when the guards kicked in their door, drawn by her screams—and those of her secret lover. Peter, the story goes, dropped the ax and offered his wrists, never a word.

  Clicking again, Anoushka returned to forward view. Away from the murderer and his dog. They sallied on, clattering, spooking more birds, shaking trees to their bare limbs. At this rate, they’d be a week late. There was little use in procrastinating; they’d signed a contract.

  “Miss Browne,” Anoushka called through J
oan’s rumbling, “think we might get a signal way out here?”

  “Can try,” Kylie-Nae said and clicked on their radio. As the tubes behind the wicker mesh began to glow, fuzz fading in, she tuned, ear close. If just the right song was to come on, they might reach their destination early for once.

  After the third startling static blast, Russell suggested, “One that won’t give us all a headache will do, lass,” as affable as a hungover dwarf could be.

  “Or make them worse,” Zuther added and stifled a burp.

  “Ye puke on me, Zee, we’ll be havin’ words,” Russell cautioned the man in the pedaler pit behind his.

  “Please don’t say puke.” The islander, eyes closed, swallowed and swallowed.

  Despite the tank’s rattling, Anoushka caught the occasional snippets of electric lute Kylie-Nae was panning from the ether. The cannon master gave the antique’s side a fix-it smack.

  Their radio, wood-paneled minstrel, had its own duty: Boost us when we’re low, give a soundtrack to a dustup, remind us that it might not be fighting over imaginary lines forever. And when Kylie-Nae’s hand sprung away from the touch-smoothed ceramic knob, Anoushka knew she’d snared something good. As the volume was raised, Anoushka watched a quiet joy spread as Russell’s short legs began pedaling with more gusto. Then Zuther’s, too, while he nodded to the beat. Together, they sang. Not well. But it was a favorite, a song that promised its listener that their metal’s health, whatever that was, would surely drive them mad. Rust could be a frustration, after all. Maybe that’s what he was talking about, Anoushka considered.

  The music was magick. Not the corrupting sort that Queen Ursula Stellen-Austenhoff and the Orthodox Aurorineans considered it to be, but one that quickened the blood and put smiles on lips that seemed capable of uttering only complaints. Soon they were ripping down the track; Peter and Teetee fought to keep up. Likely racing toward their doom but, hey, at least they’d be punctual.

  With this next bigger hill, Joan considered tipping back . . . but levered and thundered down the other side. When the track doglegged, the squad leaned as one. As their hill-gifted velocity began to fade, Anoushka called out for Zuther and Russell to start back up. Springs redrawn, the tension-engine chimed: ding! The coupling shifted back with a lever shove, and their treads regained purchase, velocity sustained.

  The radio was being generous today. The next song was—

  A unicorn pranced onto the road.

  Stupid thing just stood there as the tank rumbled near. Anoushka couldn’t swerve; they’d likely break a tread or, banish the thought, flip. She winced as Joan’s front armor met the ’corn. Never crying out, it accepted its flattening stoically. The crunches passed under the floor, front to back quick; they were still speeding along.

  Anoushka clicked the periscope to rear view. Peter and Teetee, surprised, maneuvered around the pancaked unicorn. Teetee gave no pause before tearing into what lay pressed an inch into the road, an early lunch.

  “Braking,” Anoushka hollered, “hold on.”

  Once at a full stop, Zuther reached up from his pit to console Kylie-Nae—a pat on the knee he could reach. He’d probably been waiting for the opportunity. Killing a ’corn was serious bad luck—Kylie-Nae twitched at her squad mate’s touch. Thanking him, she returned her gaze to the forward viewport. The wipers smeared the quicksilver-like blood away. Zuther withdrew his hand.

  Anoushka requested the side armor flanks drawn down—as they were anytime Joan wasn’t in motion. With powerful arms, Russell worked the chain spools. It grew dark inside, the smell of suns-warmed wheat replaced by sweat and raw gunpowder. The heat swelled. Joan: an oven on treads.

  “Mr. Russell, damage report, if you would.” Anoushka knuckled her forehead. Frustration. They’d squished a hjort once, and it’d somehow managed to wrap its raw venison around the driveshaft like seaweed fouling a propeller. While that’d been annoying and cost them a day, a unicorn’s spike was harder than any metal. Get one of those stabbed into some important part of Joan, and they’d be plum out of luck way out here.

  The dwarf shimmied up the central ladder, clanged shut the topside hatch.

  Anoushka pulled close the funnel of the holler tube. “How’s it look?”

  “We’re fine, Cap’n,” Russell replied down the tube. Anoushka could smell his breakfast—cheesy eggs, coffee. “But Mister Coonan’s throwin’ a flag. The black ’un.”

  Shit. “Get back on, Russ, and hold on.” Then, “Mister Fuath, think you can get us cranked by yourself?”

  “Aye-aye.” Zuther began cycling. The springs under the tank floor squeaked and twanged, drawing long again. As the signal bell sounded, Anoushka wrenched off the parking brake. The cleats on Joan’s underbelly withdrew from the dusty track—chuk.

  In the periscope, she could see Russell kneeling next to the tank’s cannon, hugging the barrel under one arm. Past him—adjusting focus with a small dial—Matthew at 200 yards, stirring the black flag overhead. Manic sweeps. Wide-eyed, terrified. Anoushka raked in controlled tugs. Tank halted, their dust cloud caught up. Cleat spikes were thrown again, fastening them to the road like a tick clamping flesh. Anoushka put her brain bucket back on, leaving the straps to dangle.

  A patter of hooves. Peter appeared at the portside slat, reining sharp. The enormous man drew up his faceplate, a rush of steam escaping. His oil-dark beard was dripping. Arteries constricted, brain swelled, adrenaline administered. Ready.

  “Black flag,” Russell informed their berserker charge from above.

  Peter turned in his saddle, shaded his eyes with a gauntleted hand. To Matthew flagging for help, Peter offered indifference. Looking at Anoushka through the slat, the berserker let his dark eyes request orders.

  “Go. Flag if you need us.”

  Peter spurred off. Teetee, a thousand tiny hemisphere mirrors on his muzzle, ’corn blood, bounded beside him.

  Those in the tank waited, sweated.

  One minute.

  Two.

  Down the tube: “Peter’s wavin’ red.”

  “Then please join us, Mister Russ, and strap in. Releasing brakes.”

  A cautious crawl, quarter-speed. Anoushka swallowed her heart, sweat running her sharp features, dripping from her pointed ears and chin. Could they have reached this far inland already?

  Emerging from their dust, a troll stood before them.

  Four men high, six or more across. Tusked, pissed. The scout, evading, replied to the troll’s tottering attempt with a swing of his saber. Across the back of the creature’s knee, its wrist—only scuffing tough hide.

  As it turned to chase Peter next, finding Matthew too elusive, Anoushka noticed a platform saddle on the troll’s back. Reins, sans wrangler, hung loose. The Flesh Hammer had slipped its lead. What kind of destruction had this thing made between here and the battleground? Hundreds of farmsteads and crossroad towns. She hated to think its stomach could’ve been so distended because of more than sheep.

  Peter sparked his smooth-bore scattergun, blasting a divot into the troll’s reaching arm. While it was distracted, Matthew charged in to swing at the creature’s knee—and hit a nerve. The troll bellowed and swung in retaliation. The crushing slap passed over the scout’s head as he ducked and raced off, his helm’s plumage dancing.

  “Load,” Anoushka shouted.

  The tank crawled closer to the fray as Kylie-Nae prepared the ball and powder.

  Still too far off to be any aid . . . but they rumbled on.

  Peter’s dog made a circuit around the troll’s legs in a disorienting figure eight. Once good and dizzy, Teetee gnashed at the creature’s ankle. Before his dog got stomped, Teetee’s master fired again. A gush of white gun smoke, leaping red sparks—grapeshot’s violent birth. The troll took the hit to the chest. To it, a mere bee sting.

  Eyes to the periscope, Anoushka nearly choked as the troll swept the air right behind Peter’s horse. Shattered earth flew twenty feet high.

  Now in range, Anoushka dropped cle
ats—chuk—necessary since Joan’s blast was mighty. She was liable to flip ass-over-teakettle if her cleats weren’t set first. Anoushka thumbed cotton balls deep into her ears. She waited, ready, on the trigger, refusing to blink lest she miss an opportunity. But while Matthew and Peter rode circles to keep the troll within range, they were also keeping themselves in range.

  “Guys, get clear . . .”

  The wind changed. The road dust and gun smoke roamed toward the tank, an impenetrable gray veil in the periscope. Inside the murk, a flash of sparks—a flintlock’s krak. A huge arm broke into view—big as an old tree—terminating in a crash, the moan of plate armor absorbing impact. The troll’s powerful swing ushered dust away. Matthew. One leg pinned beneath his crushed, dead mare.

  Kylie-Nae, at the forward window, shrieked.

  Seeing he’d been downed, the troll approached.

  A shadow fell across the helpless scout. A massive foot raised . . .

  “Firing.”

  The heavy whump shook through their chests. Loud, even to cotton-stuffed ears.

  Distracted by the heat that’d whispered over its skull, the troll set its foot down. Just beside Matthew. It turned, toward them, the interrupters.

  “Reloading,” Kylie-Nae shouted. Hysterical, fumbling. This, the downside to romances between squaddies, Anoushka realized.

  Thoughts creaked in the troll’s bovine eyes: Which to address? This new annoyance or the one already downed but not yet eaten?

  Matthew was still trying to drag himself free from under his broken horse. Even though he wasn’t Matthew’s dog, Teetee put himself between. Ignoring the wolfhound even as it tore into its pinky finger, the troll continued to reach big gray fingers near the scout. Matthew raised his saber, stabbing the approaching palm. The blade bent, snapped, and the fingers walled around him—Teetee barely managed to slip back through.

  Peter rode in, fired his scattergun at the troll. The grapeshot bounced off its cheek as if pebbles tossed against a stretched, drying hide.