Breathing hard with exertion from the run, I barreled through the door and straight into the person who had been about to walk out through it. I cursed as we both hit the floor and instantly found myself with cause to regret it.
"Really sorry, Jack," I mumbled as we sorted ourselves out and got to our respective feet. The better part of my blood supply was involved in signaling my embarrassment. Or at least that's what it felt like. I was glad that I'd caught him before he left but not about the manner in which I had done it. Again, the universe does not have a sense of poetic justice, but it does have a twisted sense of humor.
"Ketiya, what is happening out there?" he asked. The inn was in the northeast quarter of the city, so he had been too far away from the square to know the cause for everyone's panic.
"That's what I came to tell you, Jack. I don't know how, but Aku knows you're here." Jack's face signaled his horrified comprehension. When I told him about the mantis bots and Captain Artophon's announcement, his eyes narrowed and his hand went to his sword hilt.
"Aku's lackey will not have to wait until sundown," Jack growled. "I will see him dead by then."
He was about to head out the door. I grabbed his arm to stop him. "Hold on. We need a strategy or something first."
"'We?'" he repeated, his anger turning to surprise. Then he shook his head. "This is not your fight, Ketiya. We already agreed on that."
"That we did," I admitted, "But we were both wrong. I'm going with you."
He just looked at me for a few moments. Then he smiled, and it was official. We were in it together.
~***~
Half an hour later, we were in the guardroom that sat above the western gateway. We had taken great pains getting there, going by back streets so as not to be seen by Artophon or his metal monsters. I had a set of binoculars – not high-tech ones, but they served – and was using them to peer out the arrow slits at our enemies. There were five mantis bots standing in a line on the road, two hundred feet from the gate. They were no longer using their treads; instead, they were using their legs (which came in sets of six, of course), which they could use to move with surprising agility when they were called upon to do so. The situation was the same at the other four gates, except that Captain Artophon himself was waiting with this bunch.
I watched him carefully through my binoculars. Now that I was able to get a clear view of him, I could see that he wore a fearsome helm of black metal. His nose and mouth were covered by a black cloth mask, but I could see his eyes, which burned red like those of the mantis bots. The skin around them was dark crimson, like dried blood, as was the skin of his clawed hands. So he was probably a demon – Aku used to use demons instead of robots, Jack told me, but these days they were pretty rare.
"He's got a metal vambrace on his left arm," I told Jack. "It's got some buttons and stuff on it. That's what he uses to control the mantises – so he can call them, track them, deactivate them, whatever." I passed him the binoculars so that he could survey the scene. After about a minute he lowered them and turned to me.
"Is he carrying a weapon?" he asked.
"I don't think so," I answered. "He's going to have the bots do the work for him, after all."
Jack frowned at that. He raised the binocs again and peered through them for another few seconds. "Do you have any idea as to how we should proceed?"
I rolled my eyes. "We don't have much to work with. The townsfolk have no weapons capable of damaging those bots, so it's your sword and my arrows and that's it." I shook my head.
"At least there are only twenty of them," Jack remarked, without a trace of humor or sarcasm in his voice.
What I had to say to that doesn't bear repeating.
~***~
No, we didn't come up with a miracle strategy. What we had could barely be considered a strategy at all. We ended up crouching on the walkway that ran along the inside of the wall, checking over my bow and arrows. I was going to provide Jack with covering fire when he went out to face Artophon.
"You would be safer in the guardhouse," he suggested for the third time. I had appreciated his concern at first, but it was starting to annoy me.
"No way. Arrow slits are good when you're trying to stop an incoming charge and you have archers to man them all, but this sort of thing requires marksmanship. You can't really pick your targets through arrow slits. I'll be of more help to you from up here than in there. The mantises don't have ranged weapons, so I won't have to worry about them." Jack was still looking at me with a doubtful expression. "Let me worry about me. You just try and keep yourself alive, okay?" It was strange, I thought, but now I was not afraid for myself at all.
He risked a peek over the wall to look at the mantises. "Are you…sure you can hit them from here?"
"Yes," was my reply. Jack raised an eyebrow at me, probably surprised that I'd only given him a one-word answer. He nodded at me.
"Good luck to you. Please be careful." He moved to the ladder nearby and started climbing down it – he had no problem with the rungs, even with the sandals he was wearing.
"Jack?" I addressed him. He halted in his descent and looked up at me. "Please make sure to get that Artophon bastard, if I don't manage to shoot him." I grinned.
He smiled back at me before nodding and continuing down the ladder. I fitted an arrow in my bow and waited for Jack to leave out the western gate and issue his challenge to the demon Captain. I usually feel tense before a battle, but for this one – and it was the only one – I felt calmer and more confident than I did in the best of times. Don't ask me to explain why – I couldn't possibly tell you.
I looked over the top of the wall at the robots, then at the road before the gate. Jack came out from inside the city, his hands tucked into his sleeves, his gaze fixed straight ahead of him. He walked slowly, with the stately grace of a great king. I looked at Artophon, who was merely standing there, watching him.
Jack walked to a point about ten feet from the gate and stopped. "I heard that you were looking for me." His voice was casual but icy.
Artophon drew himself up haughtily. "Jack, you stand accused of threatening the person of our great Lord Aku, and I have been instructed to bring you before him for judgment. Surrender now and he may show you mercy," he called out.
"Do not insult me," Jack replied, in a voice that seemed quiet but was nonetheless perfectly audible. "I will not surrender." He drew his sword from its sheath; the blade was a silvery flash in the sunlight, and I was reminded of yesterday morning, when I had seen him practicing sword forms.
"Very well then," Artophon sneered. He pressed a button on his vambrace. Two of the mantis robots came to life and, with surprising speed, leaped into the air at Jack. I stood up, drawing back my arrow, picked a target and fired.
My arrow got one of them through the head, and it fell over when it hit the ground – whatever served as its brain was no longer functioning. The other one landed and slashed with its scythe, but Jack had already jumped and the blade slashed through empty air. As Jack reached the apex of his jump, he brought his sword around in a slash from right to left, tearing through the mantis' armor plate and the circuitry beneath. I could see sparks of energy crackling around the slash. It wasn't enough to take the thing out, but now it was moving in jerks and starts.
I had already fitted another arrow and pulled back. I shot at one of the three mantises gathered around Artophon, who was frantically pushing buttons on his vambrace. There was a nimbus of bright electricity around the bot's head for a moment before its eyes faded. Jack had landed on the ground and given his own mantis some more problems to worry about, around the area of its abdomen. Oil and hydraulic fluid gushed forth from it; then the three legs on its left side buckled, and it fell to the ground, narrowly missing Jack. He leaped onto the ruin he had made of it and grinned in Artophon's direction. It was a grin with fangs in it.
I took care of one of the other two. Jack sidestepped a swipe from the last one and cut its left legs out from under it with a sword. It collapsed, broken, to the ground. I smiled to myself. Five down…
…and fifteen to go. Artophon had signaled them, and now the ten who had been guarding the northern and southern gates were coming this way, a set of five from each direction, trampling the fields beneath their churning insect legs as they went. I managed to take out two from the southern team before the other three leaped at Jack. The five from the northern team were getting themselves into a circle around him.
Jack's sword met one of the mantises in midair, slicing off its scything-blade forelegs. Rendered off-balance by the sudden loss of them, it hit the ground badly, crushing one of its sets of legs beneath it. It was unable to rise. Jack landed on it and ducked as one of the other two mantises tried to take a backswing at him and impaled its partner.
Don't you just love friendly fire when it happens to the other guy? Anyway…
The mantis was unable to get its foreleg out of its comrade's thorax, and both of them went crashing to the ground. I thought, with a moment of panic, that Jack had been crushed under them, but of course he hadn't – he was rushing at one of the circle of five that were rapidly closing in on him. I managed to account for another one of those.
With a savage cry that froze the blood in my veins, Jack pounced on his target, his sword a whirling arc, slashing like mad. He opened several gashes in the bot's body and was sprayed with oil. I fired another arrow, but this time my shot was not good, and it only hit the target in the thorax. I cursed to myself. My shot was not without effect, however – it must have hit something major, because one of the bot's scything blades went limp. But it was still standing and swinging around with its good foreleg. I quickly fitted another arrow and prepared to fire, but I noticed the last group of five bots – from the east gate – were arriving. I picked off one of those instead. Meanwhile, Jack finished off the "injured" one from my bad shot.
Artophon was raging now, hopping up and down, cursing at the bots as if that would make them perform better. I was tempted to shoot him, but decided against it, since the remaining bots were a bigger problem. I only managed to get one of the eastern gate team before the rest got to Jack.
I didn't dare fire another arrow then, for fear of hitting Jack. I can't describe what it was like to see him, weaving in and out among the scything blades, leaping to avoid them, and once even using one enemy as a platform to jump onto another. I've heard that there are people who don't believe the stories about what he does with that sword. But I tell you now, they are all true, though for the most part they fall short of the real thing.
I was so hypnotized that I didn't think to look for Artophon. When I did, I couldn't find him. I figured that he must have run off – he was that type. I turned my attention back to Jack, just as he dispatched the last of the mantises. It toppled, slowly, and when it hit the ground I jumped up to cheer.
Jack smiled at me from where he stood, and held up his sword in a salute. His white robe was torn and stained, and I could see even from afar that his shoulders were heaving from exertion. But we had done it – we had won.
I heard a cheer from behind me, and turned to see the people of the town, leaning out of windows and pouring out of doors, dancing with each other in the streets.
To this day, I think it was my turning around that saved me.
There was a loud cracking noise, and I felt a pain just above my left hip, heard the cheering die away. I turned and looked down at the source of the pain, touched it with my hand. My fingers came away red, and a wet stain was spreading through my clothes.
Artophon had been armed after all. With a gun. He must have been hiding in the grass…
I looked over the wall and saw Jack running at Artophon, his sword raised over his head. The demon captain raised his gun again and fired. Jack jerked backward with the impact of the bullet. Then the edges of my vision started to darken and blur. My legs collapsed under me, and I fell to the walkway.
We had come so close to winning. But we were going to die anyway.
That was the thought in my head as I slipped off into darkness.