Death's Watchman
Timebunt nobis in toto corde suo.
The shadow of the airship was a gleaming beacon of hope to some, a terror to others. She rode the wind slowly, with a grace unbecoming of her colossal size. At either side of her, light virtibirds launched and went flying to survey the drop sight, they looked like bees in comparison. In the streets, groups of scavengers scattered to the protection of nearby ruins and the smaller bands of raiders scurried back into their holes. High above, on the command deck, Lancer Captain Ryl watched as his bride made her way to the mooring sight, a retinue of armored brothers and sisters awaiting his command.
He was a tall man, thin of figure and set in his ways. He held his hands behind him, back straight, red hair freshly shaved, angular face immaculately shorn and clean. His uniform was gleaming, every button a shining star on his character, his discipline.
"Ten degrees starboard." he ordered.
"Aye aye, captain."
His bride listed closer to the designated drop sight.
"Captain Ryl," a voice broke on the commlink.
"Report, lancer."
"Drop sight clear of hostile forces and abominations. Praise Maxson."
"Commence one more sweep of the south ruins and stay clear of the mission area, lancer. Copy?"
"Copy, Captain."
He watched the scout ships fly off and rise towards the destination. Smiled at the sight of them. Flipping on the intercom, he announced, "We're nearing our destination, Sentinel Gaunt, sir. See that your men are ready for drop."
There came no response, just as he had expected.
Annoyed, he flipped off the comm, ordered a shipmate about and listened to another scout report.
"The Sentinel can be a little trying, brother lancer." someone said.
Ryl turned on his heels, saw the withered face of Paladin Costain and his young Squire Barnabas. The pair made a stark company: Costain, a greybeard old paladin, battle scarred and skin dried from long hours in power armor; Barnabas, a green boy with a shaved pate and soft, almost weak face and build. One was weary, the other eager. Ryl didn't think that one would go anywhere in the Legions. Perhaps he could be a good militiaman? He thought.
"I have no quarrel with the honored sentinel." Ryl said. He saluted the paladin. "May I ask why you've come, Paladin Costain?"
"Here to watch the drop." he said as he walked to one of the windows. His squire wandered, wide eyed, among the command stations.
"Please, do not touch, young squire." Ryl cautioned. "This is sensitive equipment."
"Of course, Lancer Captain." the boy said. He followed his master, stood on his toes to peer out the window. The paladin was arrayed in his dress uniform, a black dress robe with his tight skinsuit underneath. The paladins never took those things off, Ryl had observed. Part of their training, no doubt. His squire wore his uniform, jacket, backpack and all, with a pride often seen from the youth. Aboard Nuada there must be thirty of the little bastards, running around, shouting and distracting the crew. Ryl did not hate the young people—that would be absurd—he just couldn't stand to be around them; have their grubby little hands over his dear Nuada.
"The sentinel is a good man," the paladin said, as if to himself.
"Aye, sir. I see no fault in his bearing."
"And his character? Do you see fault in that?"
Ryl thought for a long moment, considering what he'd say. The sentinel, though being the right hand of Elder Hartwood, was a strange man. A quiet man, a massive man who spent all his free time training his recruits or himself back on Liberty Island. And all his working hours were spent...well. Some things aren't worth mentioning. His unit were even stranger; the best of the best from all over the wastes. He made a point of recruiting from only the harshest of environments: the Pit, inner D.C., the edge of the Glowing Sea and Far Harbour, to only name a few. From there he'd beat them, ware down their pride and their hearts and their grit, build up their strength and determination and hatred for the enemy. Some said he used chems to augment their capabilities, others that he had a pack of deathclaws he makes his recruits fight to the death with only a knife and the will of Maxson. He knew no one that trusted them, or their leader. That seemed the right thing to do.
"Well," he said. "Some search for the Lost Son, others hunger for the way of Steel, he does his duty. What more could you ask of a brother?"
"Compassion, perhaps." Costain said after a fashion.
That surprised him. "Compassion, sir?"
"Aye, compassion. If not for the civilians then for his own brothers and sisters—his family. He has none though. He and his team slaughtered whole settlements during the First March with no regard to the lives of those around them. They purged town after town and the elder said nothing, says nothing about it." he stopped for a minute, considering. "He's empty, you know? I've talked with him before, no more than a few sentences; his voice is hard and cold. The voice of a wraith, not a man. I pity him."
Pity the sentinel? That was a strange idea. Fear him, yes. Distrust him, of course. Pity him? "Why would you pity him?" Ryl asked. Costain gave no answer.
The drop site was a queer little place. More an intersection between a few streets that had been extended to form a hub of some kind than anything else. Sometimes Ryl had no idea what the Old People were thinking when they made their cities. What they called this place was even stranger; Time Square. Absurd, he thought, it held no time and it wasn't even a square. He was sure Scribe Rikon would have the reason why they called it such an odd name—or at the very least an approximation from what he knew—but it didn't matter. The past was the past. Whatever they called in back then was their business, what it is now is what's important. It was a hive of raider scum.
Preliminary scout ships were sent a few weeks ago, one of them had fallen to enemy fire, the other two had limped back to Liberty Island with their tails between their legs. They had reported near hundreds of the filth, packed and fortified like sardines in the narrow streets and in the ruins. Immediately Elder Hartwood had suggested simply leveling the area, but Head Scribe Kelver thought there might be some documents of historical importance in some of the buildings thereabouts and so Gaunt was called.
Ryl remembered the look on his face when he told the man the news.
Blank. Expressionless. He nodded his head, went about readying his men. He had never felt more nervous in his entire life.
Now they were here.
"Preparing for drop." a harsh voice announced over the comm.
He joined the paladin and his squire at the starboard window, said, "Angulus diriget gressus tuos."
There came no response.
Through a rear facing mirror he watched them come form a line at the docking bay. Already shots were whizzing past the armored balloon or chiming on the metal struts. Gaunt's unit seemed unfazed. With a silent command one by one they walked out into nothingness and fell straight down. The first one crashed into the roof of a building, bursting through it and firing his rifle all the while. The second slammed hard on an old car, a hail of gunfire blasted him as he raised his gatling laser and let loose a torrent of death. Then they all went, crushing shacks and makeshift forts. Explosives strapped to their legs exploding as they landed, killing scores of them.
Ryl counted them, eleven. That meant the sentinel was still on the ship. He checked the docking bay, Gaunt was still there, waiting. He was armed with only a long reaverblade and armored in his near impenetrable Xo-1 MK-VI power armor, devoid of sigils or insignia. He held his blade close to his heart when he fell. His impact, and the subsequent explosion, could be heard like a thunderbolt even as high up as Nuada stood. Ryl took a spyglass from a crewman, watched as the sentinel raced the battlefield, hacking and slashing his way to where the leader was said to live. Within minutes his armor was covered in viscera, the broken streets strewn with blood and gore. He glanced at the paladin, who was looking down at the scene with a face full of distance. His squire was quite the opposite. He looked as if he was watching some pre war holofilm, glee and lust clear on his adolescent face. Very disturbing. Suddenly he was wondering who sired that boy.
"He's a beast!" someone said behind the captain.
"More beast than man, aye."
"He's just insane," Ryl said, eyes fixed on the carnage. He and his men were tearing through the lines of raiders as if they were nothing. "It's nothing unusual in wasters." he glanced over at the paladin, no reaction.
"Wow!" the child shouted, pointing. "Look at that." Ryl followed his finger. Up this high it looked like the square was filling up with ants. Hundreds of them, converging on all sides. All points. Trying to pin the squad into a circle.
Ryl rushed to the comm station. "Sentinel! Sentinel! Move your unit out, sentinel! Move them out now!"
No response.
"Goddamn it, Gaunt! Your men are going to die you little son of a bitch! Move them out!"
Silence.
"Fuck!" he shouted. He switched the signal. "All lancers, all lancers, drop team needs assistance! Move out, move out now! Gunships, rain hell on them, goddamnit."
"Aye aye, captain." came the response of a hundred voices at once.
Ryl rushed to the window. They were still coming. He could see bullets ricocheting off power armor, some of them killing their attackers. "Do you have your armor, paladin?"
"Would good would it do?" Costain's voice was calm, horribly calm. "They're already dead. They just don't know it."
"Fuck! Fuck!"
"Here to bring the pain, captain." came the voice of a lancer.
"Strike! Strike dammit! Everything you have!"
"Killing 'em hard, boss."
A flurry of gunfire blared out of the virtibird's main guns. Hoards of them were shredded, torn to bloody pieces. It cut through the ruins with ease, rubble flew everywhere, raining down on those that still lived. Still there were more, then rockets were launched at the gunship. spinning, inaccurate things, true, but they were enough to make the lancer pull out of range. With that they advanced, forgetting the other knights, focusing on Sentinel Gaunt. Ryl couldn't see him anymore, there was too much dust and debris, but he knew that he had made it into the main fortification. He said a silent prayer for the souls of those poor men, and another for hell to come upon the raiders.
A voice, harsh and croaking, came on the comm link. "All fire. All fire, you useless lancer dogs!"
"Aye aye, sentinel!" every lancer responded.
"Wait!" Ryl shouted back. But he was too late. Ten gunships, fully equipped, all rushed into the fray, guns flaring.
"Cleanse and purge, my brothers!" someone shouted on one line, on another there was only laughter.
"Get us out of here!" he ordered.
"Of course, captain."
"Battle frenzy." the paladin said thoughtfully.
"What do I do!" he shrieked at Costain. "What do I do! I've lost control!"
"You can't do anything, Lancer Captain." he said solemnly. "They either come back whole and hale, or they die. Keep the Nuada a good distance away. That's all the help I can give." he turned, walked out of the room, Barnabas close at his heels, leaving Ryl breathless, terrified.
Minutes past. Three. Five. Ten. A great cloud of dust concealed the square from them. He could hear nothing. Not the ring of gunfire, nor the thrum of virtibird wings. Nothing. It was as if the world had come to an anxious hush as the battle raged. The whole crew as on edge. A young woman stood by the window of the command deck, her hands grasping a medallion of the Angle. Erin, he thought her name was. He couldn't be sure. He had tried to look absent, unconcerned for his men, but he couldn't. He had known most of those lancers their whole lives and now they might all be dead. He was racked with fear. With hatred for the raiders and the damn sentinel most of all. Every time he tried to get a comm link on one of them all he heard was shouting and curses. He couldn't take it anymore. He watched with the rest of his crew.
The air was stale in the command deck. No one breathed a word. They were afraid to move. Afraid to think. Some muttered silent prayers, some rocked back and forth in some trance of fear, others cried.
"What was that?" the captain had heard something. He leaned over the window, peered through his spyglass. It looked like there was something rising out of the dust cloud. Beating the particles to a fine spiral as it rose. "Praise Maxson!" he shouted. "Praise Maxson and all His fathers!" one by one they came, every one of them, lifting out of the smoke and haze of battle, triumphant.
"Captain Ryl!" one of them called. "Scum destroyed! Requesting permission to dock."
"Permission granted!"
He went out to greet them. The flight deck was cold but he didn't care. He ran to the nearest lancer and, resisting the urge to embrace him, he slapped him on the shoulder. The lancer hugged him. He didn't stop it.
Heavy footsteps sounded ahead of him. He looked and saw Sentinel Gaunt staring down at him. His armor was rent; his pauldrons had been blown off, holes lined all the softer areas of the ceramic-steel plating and his helmet was a twisted mess in his hands. He said nothing. Pushed past the captain.
"Where are your men, sentinel?" he asked. He was the only one he had seen.
"Dead." he spat back.
Ryl looked at the lancer. "All dead." he agreed. "He didn't even let us get their holotags. Said they weren't worth it. How will the Scrolls remember them?"
"They won't." he answered. "And I don't think he cares." a chill ran down his spine as he watched the man walk away. He's empty. Costain had said. Empty of everything.