“You want me to be your prince, then you’re going to listen to the orders I give. Open the damn gate, or I will do it for you.”
The captain swore, hesitating only another second before gesturing sharply at those under his command. A soldier hastily undid the lock on the gate and shoved it open. Soren revved the engine and drove forward, wheels biting into the cobblestones as he headed off the grounds.
Cosian was a city whose streets he’d learned the first week of his arrival inside its walls. Soren knew exactly the path he needed to take to get from the center of the city, through its inner walls, and toward the massive outer ones. The route was one Enmei had suggested when Caris had first introduced him to the other warden.
That had been an awkward meeting between the two, but the other warden had heard him out when he’d requested the best roads to travel if they were called to the walls in an emergency. This definitely counted as an emergency, and Soren was glad for his velocycle as he weaved through streets full of abandoned vehicles as people ran for cover.
He’d not been in Cosian for an attack, though it was impossible to miss the number of soldiers mixed in with civilians. They were the ones racing to their assigned defensive positions, and Soren did his best not to run any of them over. The warning sirens never stopped, and beneath the sound was a repeated warning in Ashionen of the oncoming threat.
Soren pushed his velocycle faster, the vibrations from the engine thrumming through the frame between his legs. He leaned into the curve as he took corners at speeds he normally wouldn’t push in a city, but he didn’t have a choice. Neither was he the only warden gunning for the outer wall.
Other velocycles turning onto the main boulevard were driven by wardens, more than Soren was used to seeing when on the road. But the war had upended everyone’s borders, and the influx of wardens that had once guarded Daijal and Urova now found themselves handling the dead in the wake of a war.
When they all got to the main city gates that led to the trade road, the doors were barred shut. Automatons up on the wall had their Zip guns pointed at the land beyond, while the heavy anti-airship guns were being rotated into position.
Enmei was already at the gate, talking to a soldier whose epaulets and ranking pins showed him to be captain. Enmei didn’t look pleased with whatever the captain was telling him, judging by the tight, narrowed-eyed expression on the warden’s face.
“—not safe for you to be in the line of fire,” the captain argued in the trade tongue.
“Waiting for the bombs to drop inside the city puts us at just as much risk. Your airships are launching to meet the ones coming our way. If we don’t deal with the revenants now, we’ll be hunting them for days in the basin,” Enmei replied.
“General Votil wants the gates kept closed.”
“The general doesn’t speak for us wardens when it comes to revenants.”
Soren braked to a stop, back wheel skidding sideways a little until he planted his feet. He shoved his brass goggles on top of his head to better pin the soldier with a hard look. “Open the gates.”
The captain did a double take at his order, blinking rapidly as he stared at Soren. “Your Royal Highness?”
Soren grimaced at the title but didn’t protest it. “Our duty is out there, so open the gates.”
“You heard him,” Enmei said, jerking his thumb at the gates. “Let us through.”
The captain swore under his breath before spinning on his feet and shouting out an order. Within moments, the metal gate was pulled upward. Soren looked at Enmei, giving the other warden a tight nod. “Orders?”
“Airships are incoming from the west, but the horde is less than two miles out and moving quick. We think Daijal dropped the revenants sometime before dawn and waited for them to make the trek to the walls. It’s been their typical practice as of late.”
“What’s the defense we take beyond the walls?”
Hordes were typically found in the wild beasts population, though travelers who got lost in the poison fields or near bogs and died were known to cluster together as revenants. Thanks to the death-defying machines, this war produced hordes in terrifying numbers, and a single warden couldn’t hope to stand against them.
Enmei strode over to the makeshift armory that had been built, reached down, and flipped open the lid of a crate by his feet. “We keep position by the outside walls, near the trenches. That will ensure we stay under the line of fire from those above. The gates will remain closed after our departure, which means if we need to get clear of the ground, we use a grappling wire.”
Wardens were already there, hauling away crates and extra gear that they normally didn’t travel with. Enmei handed Soren a grappling crossbow, which he secured to his back over the sheath for his poison short sword with the other warden’s help. Then he helped Enmei carry a crate to his velocycle, where they secured it behind the seat. A quick check inside showed the disassembled mechanical pieces of a portable grenade launcher. They were shoulder mounted, meant to be handled by two people.
“How good are you at loading grenades?” Enmei asked.
“I handled them on the island when assigned to the fort’s walls,” Soren said.
Enmei nodded sharply. “Good. You’re with me. I don’t care what the governor says. You’re still a warden in your blood and training, and we need every last one of us in the poison fields right now.”
Other wardens loaded up their own velocycles as they arrived, everyone moving with a grim sort of purpose. Soren was itching to leave by the time the Ashion captain returned to them, a troubled expression on his face. “General Votil has asked that I request you stay within the walls while the wardens do their duty, Your Royal Highness.”
Soren kicked up the stand on his velocycle and started the engine. “No.”
The Ashionens could want to parade him around all they liked to rally their people, but Soren wasn’t about to walk away from his duty as a warden. He followed Enmei through the gates and into the flat land of the Eastern Basin, their tires eating up dirt.
Sparse grass and scattered prickly shrubs stretched across the dry ground on either side of the wide trade road. In the distance, on the horizon, a shadowy smudge that could have been fog was steadily growing larger—Daijalan war airships coming to bomb Cosian. More threatening than that was the moving mass of revenants stalking their way toward the city.
