Secrets
934 A.O.P.
One
SOREN
Rixham was a dead city. There was nothing living in Rixham.
The old Solarian mantra settled in the back of Soren’s thoughts as he rode his velocycle around the still-standing walls of the city of the dead. The Wastelands were finally to the south of him, but the red sand from the desert dunes felt as if it had settled in his skin, in his clothes, in the gears of every weapon he carried on him.
The Wastelands hugged the southern part of the continent, the coastal dunes touching the Gulf of Helia, the Southern Ocean, and the Constellation Sea. The farther north one went found the dunes dwindling into gravel plains that aided in the spread of desertification. The Wastelands were poisoned land that sustained no towns or cities.
What they did sustain were revenants.
Wild animals that died and were brought back to life by spores drifting on the wind called the valleys between the dunes home. Humans who succumbed to poisonous fog in frontier towns walked again after dying, their bodies urged onward by deadly spores looking to propagate amongst the living.
Wardens kept watch on the border, annihilated and burned what hordes they could find, and tried to keep revenants from finding their way north. Rixham used to be a city they could work out of and deploy from. These days, Rixham was nothing but a walled-off grave, just another border for wardens to guard.
Soren eventually made it to the damaged road ruined by the Legion’s war machines during the siege on the city. It was more holes and cracks than anything else now, leading to a city gate that had been welded shut by flame-throwing automatons. Wardens had barricaded it after the fact and built another iron gate over it as a precaution in case the hinges on the original didn’t hold against the elements.
The dead still walked those city streets, after all, and even wardens weren’t brave enough to enter a city with a horde over several hundred thousand strong.
The warden’s watchtower consisted of a solidly built one-story building, with a rising tower accessible only from within protruding from the roof. A two-story-tall, human-shaped automaton was positioned near the building’s entrance, the machine’s clockwork gears quiet and its Zip gun arms pointed at the ground rather than a target. Whoever was on watch duty had the control device and could easily activate the sentinel-class automaton.
It wasn’t the only automaton guarding Rixham. Some of the best inventors of war machines for Solaria’s Legion had created the sentinel class, whose sole purpose was to patrol Rixham. They carried enough firepower to hopefully contain a breach, but as a breach had yet to occur, they hadn’t been tested. Soren had driven past a few on his way to the watchtower.
The two wardens assigned to the watchtower met him at the front door, the younger woman waving at him in greeting. Neither had their poison swords strapped to their backs, but each carried a pistol and had a few blades holstered on their bodies.
“You’re a little early to be Jalissa’s replacement,” the older woman said. Her eyes were a piercing blue in a nut-brown, weathered face, hair an even mix of gray and brown.
Soren rolled his shoulders to adjust the weight of his poison sword as he cut the engine on his velocycle. “I’m here to pick up your border reports.”
He wouldn’t have driven around the swampy wetlands to get to Rixham otherwise. The railroads that used to run to the city of the dead were rusted from disuse these days. There was no hope of catching a train this far southeast in Solaria.
“Ah, we have those for you. I’m Petra.”
“Soren.”
She blinked at him. “The same warden who saved the Imperial crown prince a few years back?”
Soren shrugged. “It was either that or leave him to revenants.”
“Might have been the better option, with the way the Houses are. You heard the news yet?” Petra asked as she retreated into the watchtower.
“I’ve been in the Wastelands. I haven’t heard anything.”
Jalissa grimaced. “The Empress and Emperor Consort are dead. Poison is the running bet with the bookies, according to the broadsheets. The prince is taking over the Imperial throne.”
It might have been Second Month, but it was still warm enough in the middle of the day this far south. Warm enough that the sudden chill that shot through Soren made his teeth clack together. Unease settled heavily in his gut. He reached up and scratched at his cheek before shoving his brass goggles on top of his riding helmet.
“Got a broadsheet I can catch up with?” he asked.
“Inside. We’ll get you chai as well.”
The watchtower wasn’t homely, reminding him more of the barracks back on the Warden’s Island. Weapons were laid out on a table in the main work area on the first level. Petra shuffled through folios on a wooden desk against one wall while what looked like a clockwork cat sat perched on the stool beside her. It wasn’t a wind-up version or looked to be steam-powered. When it turned its head to stare at him with bottle-green crystal eyes that glowed, Soren had the intense desire to go for his pistol.
“What is that?” he asked, going still.
