The heavy, rhythmic thudding grew louder.
CLANG. HISS. CLANG. HISS.
It sounded like a giant's heartbeat made of iron and steam. The vibration traveled up through the soles of Elara's boots, shaking her bones.
Ciro extinguished the datapad instantly, plunging the tunnel back into the dim, sickly blue glow of the moss. He grabbed Elara's arm, pulling her behind a cluster of stalagmites.
"Don't breathe," Ciro mouthed, his eyes locked on the curve of the tunnel ahead.
A red light cut through the darkness. It was a sharp, horizontal beam that scanned the walls, the floor, and the ceiling with mechanical precision.
Then, the source of the noise stepped into view.
It was a machine.
Standing eight feet tall, it was a bulky, humanoid construct made of brass and black iron. Its surface was pitted with centuries of rust and scars from forgotten wars, but its movements were terrifyingly smooth. Pistons hissed with every step. Gears ground together with the sound of crushing bone.
In its right hand, it dragged a massive, rotary drill that sparked against the stone floor. In its left, it held a riot shield large enough to cover a door.
"UNAUTHORIZED. BIOLOGICAL. DETECTED," the machine boomed. Its voice was a grinding, synthesized distortion that vibrated in Elara's chest.
It stopped. Its head—a dome of smooth glass with a single glowing red eye—swiveled toward their hiding spot.
"It's an Automaton," Ciro whispered, his grip on his sword tightening until his knuckles turned white. "A Centurion-class mining guard. They haven't been active for three hundred years."
"It sees us," Elara gasped as the red beam swept over the rock hiding them.
"PERIMETER. BREACHED. INITIATING. PURGE. PROTOCOL."
The Centurion raised the massive drill. The bit began to spin.
WHIRRRRRRR.
The sound rose to a deafening shriek.
"Run!" Ciro shouted.
He shoved Elara back down the tunnel just as the Centurion charged.
The machine moved shockingly fast for its size. It smashed through the stalagmites as if they were made of sugar. Stone shattered, spraying shrapnel everywhere.
Ciro didn't run away; he ran to the side, trying to draw its aggro. He picked up a fist-sized rock and hurled it at the machine's glass face.
CLACK.
The rock bounced off harmlessly. The red eye didn't even blink.
The Centurion swung its shield. It caught Ciro mid-stride.
CRACK.
The impact sent Ciro flying. He slammed into the tunnel wall, crumbling to the ground. His sword skittered away into the darkness.
"Ciro!" Elara screamed.
She stopped running. She raised her crossbow, her hands shaking violently. She aimed for the red eye.
Thwack.
The bolt hit the glass faceplate... and shattered. It didn't even leave a scratch. The armor of the Old Kings was impervious to simple steel.
The Centurion ignored her. It turned its attention to the prone figure of Ciro. It raised the spinning drill, preparing to bore a hole through his chest.
Ciro groaned, trying to push himself up, but his body was broken. Blood trickled from his mouth. He looked up at the descending drill, his eyes defiant but resigned.
"Hey! Tin Can!" Elara shrieked.
She didn't shoot again. She did something insane.
She pulled the Purple Glass Dagger—the shard of the Scorpion Queen she had harvested in the forest—from her belt.
She ran at the machine.
"Elara, no!" Ciro wheezed.
Elara slid on her knees, dodging the backswing of the shield. She wasn't aiming for the armor plates. She was aiming for the joints.
Ciro had told her: There are no perfect shots. Only good enough.
She jammed the glass dagger into the soft, rubbery seal behind the Centurion's knee—the only part not covered by iron.
The glass blade was sharper than steel. It sliced through the ancient, brittle rubber and severed the hydraulic line beneath.
HISSSSSSS!
High-pressure oil sprayed out like black blood.
The Centurion stumbled. Its leg locked up, gears grinding against each other with a screech that sounded like a dying animal. The drill slammed into the floor, missing Ciro's head by inches, carving a trench into the rock.
The machine flailed, trying to turn, but its leg was useless. It crashed against the wall, trapped by its own weight.
"ERROR. HYDRAULIC. FAILURE. ERROR."
Ciro didn't waste the opening. He scrambled up, ignoring the agony in his ribs, grabbed Elara's hand, and pulled her past the thrashing machine.
"Go! Before it reboots!"
They sprinted down the tunnel, the sound of the machine's mechanical struggling echoing behind them. They didn't stop until they reached a heavy, circular blast door at the end of the corridor.
It was sealed shut.
"Dead end," Elara gasped, leaning against the cold metal. Her lungs felt like they were burning. She looked at the glass dagger in her hand. It was chipped, but it had worked.
Ciro examined the door. There was no handle. Only a panel with a dusty glass screen and a strange, hand-shaped indentation.
"The Mining Outpost," Ciro said. "This is the airlock. It's locked from the inside."
He tried to pry the panel open with his knife to hotwire it, but the metal was seamless.
Behind them, the dragging sound of the Centurion resumed.
Clang... Drag... Clang... Drag...
It was crawling. It was coming for them.
"We need a key," Ciro cursed, slamming his fist against the door. "Grom's datapad... maybe it has an override code."
He pulled out the cracked device. He tapped frantically.
ACCESS DENIED. ACCESS DENIED.
"It's not working," Ciro said, the first note of true panic entering his voice. "It's a civilian pad. This is a military-grade door. We need a Command Level clearance."
The red light of the Centurion appeared around the corner. It was dragging its broken leg, the drill spinning slowly, hungry for flesh.
Elara looked at the hand-shaped scanner.
"The Old Kings," she whispered. "My father... he loves to brag about our lineage. He says the Royal Family carries the blood of the Founders."
"Elara, that's just propaganda to keep the peasants in line," Ciro said, stepping between her and the approaching machine, raising his sword. "Get behind me. I'll buy you time."
"No," Elara said. "It's not propaganda. It's biology."
She stepped up to the panel.
She took her glass dagger and sliced her own palm.
"Elara!"
She didn't listen. She pressed her bleeding hand onto the scanner, smearing royal red across the dusty glass.
For a second, nothing happened. The Centurion was twenty feet away. Ten feet.
Then, the dusty screen flickered to life.
"GENETIC. MARKER. DETECTED."
The red light on the panel turned green.
"WELCOME. DESCENDANT. OF. MORVATH."
KA-CHUNK.
The massive bolts of the blast door retracted with a groan of ancient mechanisms. The door hissed open, releasing a puff of stale, pressurized air.
Ciro grabbed Elara and threw them both inside just as the Centurion lunged.
The door slammed shut.
BANG.
The drill struck the metal from the outside, vibrating the entire wall. But the door held.
They were safe.
They lay on the floor of the airlock, gasping for air, illuminated by the flickering emergency lights.
"It worked," Ciro whispered, staring at Elara as if she had grown a second head. "The propaganda... it was real. You have their blood. You are a living key."
Elara clutched her bleeding hand. She felt lightheaded. "I guess being a Princess has its perks."
Ciro bandaged her hand quickly with a strip of cloth. Then, they stood up and looked at where they were.
They were in a massive, dome-shaped hall.
It was silent. Pristine.
Unlike the rusted tunnels outside, this place was untouched by time. The walls were lined with rows of glass stasis pods. Computers with glowing blue screens lined the central walkway.
But it wasn't empty.
In the center of the room, sitting at the main console, was a skeleton.
It wore the tattered remains of a white lab coat. In its bony hand, it held a small, black pistol. And on the desk in front of it, scrawled in dried blood that had turned black over centuries, was a message.
THEY ARE NOT DEAD. THEY ARE SLEEPING.DO NOT OPEN THE GATE.
Ciro walked over to the console. He looked at the message, then at the massive sealed door at the far end of the room—the door marked with the symbol of the Three-Eyed Wolf and a crown.
The Deadlands' Gate.
"This isn't a mining outpost," Ciro realized, his voice echoing in the dead silence. "It's a prison."
Elara walked to the glass stasis pods lining the walls. She wiped the dust off one of them.
She screamed.
Inside the pod, floating in green liquid, was not a human.
It was a creature of nightmare. Pale skin, elongated limbs, and a face that was a smooth expanse of flesh with no eyes, only a mouth filled with needle-teeth.
It looked exactly like the Hollows outside. But this one was bigger. Stronger. And it wasn't rotting.
It was alive.
And as Elara watched, its hand twitched.
Ciro looked at the skeleton, then at the pods, then at the warning.
"Project A.R.E.S. wasn't a weapon," Ciro whispered, dread pooling in his stomach. "It was a biological experiment. They created monsters to fight the dragons."
He looked at Elara.
"We didn't find a god-killer, Princess. We found the reason the world ended."