“Instruction not followed. Instruction requires command authorization and safety protocol override. Please consult documentation for more information.“
The response from the Relic took me by surprise. I had never heard it speak before, and though the words were said in the common tongue, their meaning eluded me. As the shouts from the last defenders at the curtain wall washed over me, I cast about anxiously for some clue.
“Documentation,” it had said. Wasn’t that another word for writing? My mind settled upon the Sacred Text of Av’tar. It was rumored to be connected to the Relic in some way. I hurried to the Shrine of the Ancients and quickly located the Text in its reliquary. With no time to open the container properly, I drew my sword and used the blade to lever open the lid. The air inside rushed out, bringing with it the surprising smell of rain. It was not how I expected five thousand year-old air to smell. I had expected the odor of dust, of ancient parchments.
Tossing such thoughts aside, I retrieved the Sacred Text. The cover was made of some strange metal; pliable as fresh beech bark, but smooth as a polished mirror. The words emblazoned on the cover were written in a hand alien to my modern eyes and worn by the centuries of use before its consignment to the Shrine, but the shapes of letters were partially recognizable, even as the words they spelled assaulted my mind with confusion.
AV’TAR
Opcroticn INanu;l
I quickly opened the tome and began reading. The writing inside was of the same hand, but far less worn and easier to read, if no less difficult to understand. Words I had never heard or seen written before flowed past my eyes, a number punctuating each line. The numbers seemed to increase, but not by any pattern I could discern.
Halfway through the second page, a line caught my eye.
Command Authorization Procedure – 87.
I stared for a moment. Was this the answer I sought? Even here in the shrine, the roars of the demons, the cries of the defenders and, most disturbingly, the screams of the fallen penetrated, edging me on to move faster, before all was lost.
Eventually, I noticed a number at the bottom of the page. 2. I flipped back and checked the same spot to find a 1. Excited, I flipped forward and checked the next page. 3. Did these numbers indicate the order of the pages? It seemed silly, as the tome was bound and the leafs could not be taken out of order without destroying it. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I flipped several pages forward, and was rewarded with a dense block of text and what appeared to be a drawing of the relic. I was right. The first few pages were a list of topics, with the page on which each topic could be found listed. I quickly thumbed forward to the page with an 87 at the bottom.
I read quickly but carefully. It instructed me to place my thumb upon one of the jewels and state my name and “rank” (which I took to mean my titles) slowly and clearly, followed by the words “initiate command authorization.”
I clasped the Relic to my chest, thumb pressed to the flat, black jewel and spoke. “I am Tradis of House Ellemere, Second of his Name, King of the Neuflorian people and Lord Commander of the Clonal Marns. Initiate command authorization.”
“Command authorization accepted.“
The voice from the relic was strangely calm, almost inhuman. I intoned the sacred prayer of last resort again. “Orbital strike on my location.”
“Instruction not followed. Instruction requires safety protocol overrides. Strategic assistance systems advise deployment of Automated Quick Reaction Force. Analysis: Automated Quick Reaction Force is currently at 57% strength, with all casualties attributed to maintenance failures. Strategic assessment of military engagements at command site indicates 25% of operational Automated Quick Reaction Force would be sufficient to repel enemy forces, and 40% of operational Automated Quick Reaction Force would be sufficient to destroy remaining enemy positions within one thousand kilometers of command site. Would you like to deploy the Automated Quick Reaction Force?“
“I, Uh…” I took a moment to process the words. What force was it referring to? And how could a force experience casualties like an army? As I processed the words, one thing became clear. The Relic was telling me that it was able to destroy all of the demons within a thousand “kill omey tiers”, whatever that was. A unit of distance, I presumed.
“Yes,” I stated, more than a hint of desperation in my voice. “Yes, deploy the otter- the Force.”
“What proportion of Automated Quick Reaction Force should be deployed?” I didn’t need to think this one through. “All of it,” I replied. “Everything you can.”
I was still too afraid for hope, but the weight of our impending doom seemed a bit lesser in that moment. The prayer for orbital strike was prophesied to destroy not just the enemy, but the city and castle, as well. This “otter-mated quick reaction force” made no mention of destroying the city, and required fewer prayers to invoke. Would we survive, after all?
“Automated Quick Reaction Force deployed. All satellites report successful launch. ETA 3 minutes, 15 seconds.” I strode back to the throne room and grabbed the sandglass, flipping it over. It would take 5 minutes to run out, so this force should have struck the enemy by then.
Confusion and hope waged a war for my heart as I immediately forgot about the sandglass and made my way out to the wall, sword still in hand. I had not fought with it since my last fencing lesson, at age 19, but I remembered my lessons well. I was determined to help rally what men remained to me.
I climbed the stairs to the wall above the gate, a trail of squires in battle-worn armor and nobles wearing coats in a much finer state of repair coalescing in my wake. At the top, I found Ser Garriman, my steward and the commander of this, the last garrison. “My lord,” he greeted me. I could see the defeat in his eyes, but his tone was the same gruff, businesslike manner I had always known. “Have you made the prayer?”
I shook my head, “No, I tried to, but the Relic spoke to me. It told me of another way. With luck, we may yet survive this nightmare.” I looked out over the parapets to the throngs of demons, below.
Like a cross between men and giant spiders, they scuttled about and threw themselves at the walls. Heedless of the arrows which skipped off their armored backs and even the crossbow bolts that turned them into pincushions, they let loose a steady stream of inhuman shrieks as they scrambled up the walls.
The hot oil seemed to be effective. I watched two men tip a cauldron over the crenelations, and saw the demons below hurling themselves aside, writhing in agony. Those who caught the full force of the stream seemed to pop; briefly tensing up before liquids spurted out from the joints in their armor and they collapsed.
The rocks worked, as well, knocking demons down and occasionally crushing them. But we were quickly running out of both rocks and oil, and it seemed likely the battle would soon become a melee, as the demons summited the curtain walls. Those few who made it that far were quickly cut down with blades and axes, but I had seen more than one body in the courtyard with the telltale bloating caused by these creature’s venomous bites.
“My Lord!” I looked up at Ser Garriman at his shout, only to see him with his neck craned back, eyes to the heavens. I followed his gaze up.
There were stars in the sky, in the middle of the day. I could see them, silhouetted by the clouds, sparkling and… Growing. “The otter-mated quick reaction force,” I muttered under my breath.
As the stars grew, they resolved into shapes. Each was like an ornate egg, with flames spouting from the bottom. Not flames like from a torch, either. These flames burned with an intense blue light, like the flames of a smelter, only brighter and less chaotic. I’d heard rumors of a far-away land where the otters had bills like ducks and laid eggs, but these seemed far to large for that. I wondered if, as the demons were hybrids of man and spider, the eggs contained warrior who would be hybrids of man and otter. In just a few moments, the eggs grew to enormous size. The largest was bigger than a cottage, though these were outnumbered by various sizes of smaller eggs, most of them being slightly larger than a man.
I watched as the eggs descended. As they reached a point just above the tallest tower of the castle, the flames flared brighter and much smaller flames sprouted from around the eggs. They slowed considerably, and descended almost gently to the ground throughout the town and even inside the keep. They slammed down with hollow thuds that echoed throughout the walls of the keep. I spun to observe a dozen man-sized eggs as they set down, the flames lighting the straw strewn throughout the courtyard briefly, before huge plumes of smoke erupted and extinguished them.
As the smoke cleared, I could see that one edge of the eggs had opened like a a yawning mouth. From these portals strode what looked like men in heavy, ornate armor. Black on black, their plate displayed no devices but a series of yellow numbers and letters across the chest and back. They held ornate clubs with odd, right-angled handles.
One of the men, the one with “CMDR-01-A-02” emblazoned on his chest turned his head to look around, stopping when he faced me. As he approached the stairs, I heard a cacophony behind me.
I looked back over the walls, and beheld an almost inscrutable sight. Hundreds of the armored men were attacking the demons, backed by huge beasts that looked like giant, claw-less crabs with masts protruding from their backs. But the way they fought was amazing. They did not wield their clubs as I expected, but cradled them in their arms, pointing the end opposite the strange handle at the demons. From this end emanated staccato bright flashes, each flash accompanied by a loud crack, like a thick tree limb snapping. The giant crabs rotated their masts around in a similar manner, only the flash from their tips was almost blinding, and they made a great booming sound like lightning striking nearby.
The demons were frantic. They redoubled their efforts to climb the walls, but to no avail. The armored men of this otter-mated quick reaction force turned their clubs to those demons climbing the walls and I watched in amazement as each crack and flash caused a demon to erupt gore from a spot on it’s body and the stone wall to shatter slightly behind it.
My mouth was hanging open like a simpletons, but I did not feel self-conscious. Ser Garriman and every other warrior on the wall bore the same expression as I. We watched, stupefied as the seemingly endless ranks of demons began to thin.
A stomping sound brought my attention back to my immediate surroundings, and I turned to see the armored man who’d spied me from the courtyard facing me. He spoke, in the same voice as the relic had spoken.
“Automated Quick Reaction Force has been successfully deployed. 17 Sentinels and 1 Titan were lost to malfunctions in orbital deployment equipment. Communications with command personnel may now be done via radio or by directly addressing any Automated Quick Reaction Force unit. Expected time to destruction of local enemy forces is 12 minutes, 30 seconds. Automated repair facilities will touch down in 32 minutes, 45 seconds and will be operational in 1 hour, 2 minutes, 12 seconds. Shipment of orbital and assault force casualties will begin in 57 minutes, 25 seconds. Automated Quick Reaction Force expected to be at full strength in 2 days, 7 hours, 5 minutes and 21 seconds. A planning session between command personnel and this unit is requested to confirm or replace system default deployment and strategy.“
I stared at the man before me as I processed the words. Much of his meaning eluded me, but I understood the important parts. In twelve minutes, the castle would be saved. In two days, the size of the army the Relic had called forth would almost double. Hope swelled within my breast.