The sky over the plains of Graorhiel had shifted from the golden red of dusk to a deep blood red accented by the rising of smoke and the towering flames dotting the battlefield. It was hot here, unbearably hot. Lord Radon wiped perspiration from his forehead with a gloved hand, then placed his right hand on his sword hilt as he surveyed the field. All around him, flesh and blood soldiers lay in the mud, grievous wounds across their bodies. Some lay lifeless, staring up at the crimson sky with eyes that would never see again, and some still writhed, their limbs twitching as they cried out weakly for assistance that could never help them. Lord Radon took a step, inadvertently bringing his boot down on an arm long severed by a circular blade. As he move onward toward a wall of smoke in front of him, he heard that familiar whine and tick paired with the sound of metallic footfalls clomping toward him through the wall of darkness. He unsheathed his sword and advanced a step, falling into a familiar stance that allowed him to easily launch an attack at the automaton that surged through. Glowing eyes and an expressionless face greeted him, absent a battle cry that should have accompanied this type of charge. His first attack was a wide swing that struck the machine with the flat of his blade, and the second was the barrel of his pistol pressed against the thing’s face, a load roar as it discharged and the bullet tore through it’s lifeless face, sending the machine to the ground, splashing in the mud as it gyrated and eventually ceased moving.

Radon turned and beheld the city of Estait, walls broken, buildings ablaze, smoke stretching upward and reaching toward the heavens. All around him, the sounds of metal clashing against metal, the discharge of firearms, the scent of gunpowder and burning flesh filling his nostrils and assaulting his ears. To his right he heard it again, the clomp of metallic feet pounding and rushing through the smoke; their dark forms burst through the wall of hellish black, charging at him, arm-mounted guns at the ready. Muscles burning and exhaustion beginning to overtake him, he stood, sword at the ready, pistol primed as he gritted his teeth, relishing in the slow drip of blood that excreted from his torn scalp. The rush of battle still excited him, and it had been far too long since he’d tasted of it.

How many of them were there? With the majority of Lady Meighan’s deployed soldiers dead or dying in the field, there would be no one left to keep them from overtaking . The battle was lost, at least from his own perspective. Then again, he couldn’t see much through the smoke. Perhaps Meighan’s troops were still out there holding their own in this cesspool of smoke and death. Goddess; if only he’d brought the detachment from Oniodale with him! He cursed under his breath as the clockwork abominations reached him, bashing the first one atop the head with the hilt of his sword. It crumbled, but three more approached from his left and right. A shot from his sidearm disabled one, but the other…

The machine swiped at him with a powered circular blade; he jerked back, too late as the thing’s teeth shredded his uniform and tore into his arm, blood spewing into the air as he cried out and slammed into the ground. The machine was joined by four others, each one armed to the teeth with whirring blades and attached firearms that could take down even the toughest of machines, let alone people. He tried to regain his feet but succeeded only in pushing himself back a few feet until he collided with the torso of a fallen soldier, the man’s face was bashed in, skull open for the world to see. 

The machines charged at him with measured precision; there was no hesitation, no emotion. They had been given commands, and they would follow. The ticking of their inner workings blared through their thick metal chassis, the clank and whine of grinding gears dominated the last moments of twilight and signaled the end of Lord Radon’s life, had General Balthasar Hammond not appeared at the last second. The aged man tore through a wall of smoke, grabbing the nearest automaton with an inhuman strength lifting it over his head and hurling it toward the group that had been converging at Lord Radon. The clockwork abominations fell to the ground, splashing in the mud, a flash of powder as one discharged a firearm into the ground. The misfired round tore through the barrel of the weapon, blowing the machine’s arm to smitherines. Radon felt the heat against his face. Balthasar dispatched the other two, one by grabbing the top of its head and using his free hand to bash it in the face; the other, he simply dismembered and kicked aside. The old man offered Radon a hand, pulling him to his feet. 

“That was sloppy, Jared,” Balthasar chided, wiping his hands and then picking up Radon’s sword to toss it to him. Radon caught the hilt and swiped the air a few times. 

“Lucky you were here then,” Radon said. “That’s some gift you have.”

“A leftover from my time in Liminality,” Balthasar said. “takes a lot out of me.”

“Can Lyra do that?”

“Lord Radon, you have a worrisome obsession with that girl,” Balthasar lectured. “Ought I be worried?”

“Probably,” Radon admitted. “but I doubt someone like me would be appealing for her.”

“Not an inaccurate conclusion!” Balthasar said as he crouched down, next to one of the fallen automatons, opening the chest compartment. “You are positively ugly, Lord Radon.”

“Now that is inaccurate,” Radon argued. “I’m the most handsome man I know. I have a very reputable source: myself.”

“Aye, if you consider a horses’s ass to be handsome,” Balthasar grunted and reached his hand into the machine, his hand covered with hydraulic fluid as he came out holding what appeared to be a cog. “You see this? Not a single part in these things has a maker’s stamp but these cogs? I’d know the design anywhere. The Minxwork Clock Company, comes right off their assembly line.”

“Balthasar,” Radon sighed. “Your assessment isn’t helpful. Anyone with half a brain would know that these are Pontifer Jellic’s invention and he reports directly to Lord Lavoric.”

“Aye,” Balthasar nodded, standing and tossing the gear to Radon who caught it and shot Balthasar a disdainful look. “What we need is proof, lad. If we’re to take our case to the Lord Regent.”

“The Lord Regent has pulled out of the summit, again. Scheduling issues,” Radon rolled his eyes. “Lavoric needs a formal declaration of war to legally attack other provinces, yet he seems loathe to do so.”

“Because he could lose the support of the crown.”

“Aye, indeed, and so he has his bitch boy, Pontifer build him clockwork armies to attack cities in secret!”

The two walked side by side through the battlefield, Radon using the flat of his blade to disable a few automatons that charged through the smoke. Overall, there seemed to be few of the things left, just stragglers, but they’d done a number on Lady Meighan’s troops. Radon lamented the fact that he was even here having to participate in this madness; he’d only come here to check on the situation in the dead zone between Graorhial and Axock. It was completely unreasonable to expect a full on attack and yet it had happened. Eventually, they came across a company of soldiers in tattered uniforms, led by a disgruntled captain with his cap slightly askew.

“Lord Radon!” The captain said, giving a salute which Radon returned.

“Where are the rest of your men, Captain?” Radon surveyed the eight ragtag soldiers standing amongst the fallen men as gunfire and screams rang out behind them, somewhere on the other side of the thick smoke.

“Dead or deserted, my Lord,” the captain said. “Sir, we…we dealt a blow to the enemy, but if they come at us like that again…”

The captain didn’t need to finish the sentence; Lord Radon looked toward the towering pillars of smoke and the soft orange glow of fire where the automatons had committed their own special brand of violence. Estait was a smaller city of about twenty thousand, and placed far too close to the dead zone where military troops were supposed to refrain from assembly, but that hadn’t stopped Axock. Estait had a few wall mounted cannons, but nothing that could have staved off a full on assault. Though, if Lord Radon were being perfectly honest, this hadn’t even been that. There had been no airships, no human troops, no armored vehicles; just these damnable automatons and their arm-mounted guns. 

“They were too fast,” Balthasar said, reading Radon’s mind. “You saw them, up on the wall.”

“I did,” Lord Radon nodded. “They climbed and they were up top before anyone noticed. Never seen a clockwork man move that fast.”

“Aye, neither have I,” Balthasar admitted. “that Pontifer, he’s truly a madman.”

“As an experienced commander, what would you suggest?” Radon looked to Balthasar, whose expression grew stony. 

“In the interest of realism,” Balthasar said. “This would never work against Auglire; perhaps the outlying cities, but Auglire is too well fortified, as is Oniodale. If Lord Lavoric were to commit human troops and armor to the cause, we could make a case to the Lord Regent and call upon our allies. As it is, who is truly bound to believe that Lavoric suddenly has automatons that can climb walls and move with near-human reflexes?”

“Then, his plan?” Radon looked to Balthasar in confusion.

“If he can find a way to move his automatons into Klocby’s outlying territories, he would immediately attack our outlying farms and production facilities. Cut off food to the city and he has us in the palm of his hand.”

“But assuming he does even that,” Radon said. “We could attack him at the border, with our combined alliances, we would be able to crush him so long as we acted fast. Auglire has plenty of food stores, they could hold out for two years, even three. Oniodale is similarly equipped. No, he has to believe he has the advantage here, and the ultimate question is why?”

“Some men desire power above all else,” Balthasar shrugged. “As for me, I enjoy fishing, and hunting. Lyra and I took down a bear once, thirty or more years ago, it was one of the best moments of my life.”

“Lyra taking down a bear?” Lord Radon laughed. “Sometimes I forget that she has that male body, have you seen what she looks like now?”

“Jared,” Balthasar said firmly. “During our time in Liminality, Lyra did not have a male body. Now, as for the reason, for Lord Lavoric’s attacks? I have some idea, though I can’t imagine how the Mah’Kur figured it out.”

“What do the Mah’Kur have to do with this?” Radon demanded.

“Walk with me, my Lord, I have a tale to tell you.”