The first siren went unnoticed.
At the edge of the fairgrounds outside Columbus, banners snapped in the late summer wind—gold lions, green dragons, a badly painted kraken that had faded under three seasons of rain. Pop-up pavilions formed crooked streets. Coolers sweated in the grass. Someone was arguing about heraldry near the list field.
The four brothers stood in armor that had taken them years to afford and a lifetime to justify.
To anyone driving past, they were grown men playing dress-up.
To each other, they were something older.
"Helm strap," Marcus said.
"I've got it," Daniel replied, though he didn't. He always tightened it too loose. Marcus reached over and tugged the leather until Daniel hissed.
"You want it snug. If you get hit, you don't want the world rattling."
Daniel grinned behind the visor. "If I get hit."
Gabe snorted from where he was stringing his longbow in the shade of their pavilion. "You always get hit."
Eli, the youngest, spun his borrowed spear like he'd been born with it in hand. He had not been knighted. He had not earned a chain or a white belt. But he moved with reckless joy that made older fighters nervous.
Beyond the list field, a loudspeaker crackled.
"Reminder," came the cheerful voice of the event steward, "heavy finals in twenty minutes. Archery range is hot. Hydrate, people."
Hydrate, people.
The second siren wailed over her voice.
It came from the direction of the highway.
Everyone paused. A few helmets tilted. Phones came out. The sound didn't stop.
It rose and fell, mechanical and urgent, and then was joined by another. And another.
Gabe lowered his bow. "That's not weather."
Daniel glanced toward the parking lot. "Probably an accident. Pileup or something."
Marcus didn't answer. He was looking at the tree line beyond the asphalt. Listening.
Under the sirens, something else threaded the air.
A grinding whine.
Then the sound of gunfire—sharp, fast, official.
It lasted less than ten seconds.
The fairgrounds fell silent.
Somewhere beyond the trees, something heavy struck metal. A car alarm began to scream and cut off mid-wail.
Eli lifted his visor. "Okay. That's new."
From the parking lot came a shout.
Not the joking shout of a man who forgot his gauntlets.
A scream.
Then another.
Marcus didn't remember deciding to move. He was already walking toward the lot, shield on his arm, sword in hand. Daniel followed, gauntlets flexing around the grip of his poleaxe. Gabe unstrung his bow in one smooth motion and restrung it with a war bow's practiced efficiency.
"Marcus," Gabe called quietly, "if this is stupid—"
"It probably is," Marcus said. "Stay behind me."
They reached the edge of the trees just as a man in jeans burst through them, sprinting.
He stumbled, fell, scrambled up again.
Behind him, the branches shook.
Something stepped through.
It was roughly the shape of a man.
That was where the resemblance ended.
Its limbs were too long, jointed backward at the knees. Matte plates overlapped across its torso like a skeletal cuirass. Its head was smooth and featureless except for a horizontal band of red light.
It carried no visible weapon.
It didn't need one.
It seized the fleeing man by the collar with a forearm that ended not in a hand but in articulated clamps. There was a wet, final sound.
The clamps released.
The body fell.
For a moment, no one moved.
A reenactor in partial armor laughed weakly. "Okay. Ha ha. Very funny. Who brought the prop?"
The machine's head rotated. The red band brightened.
It stepped forward.
Marcus felt something cold and ancient slide into place inside his chest. Fear, yes—but wrapped in something steadier.
Training.
He raised his shield.
"Back up!" he shouted. "Get behind the line!"
"What line?" someone yelled.
"This one!"
He stepped ahead of the others and planted his feet in the grass.
The machine tilted its head as if curious.
Then it lunged.
It moved faster than it had any right to, covering the distance in a blink. Its clamp-arm shot forward.
Marcus barely caught the blow on his shield.
The impact rang like a struck bell.
His arm went numb to the shoulder, but the shield held.
The machine paused.
Adjusted.
Its other limb whipped sideways, aiming for his unguarded flank.
Daniel intercepted it with the haft of his poleaxe. Steel met composite plating with a crack that jarred his teeth.
"Marcus!" Gabe shouted.
"I'm good!" Marcus lied.
The machine recalibrated. The red band flickered, scanning.
It drove forward again.
Marcus didn't think. He stepped inside the arc of its arm and brought his sword down in a tight, brutal cut at the seam where torso met hip.
Real steel.
Not rattan.
Not blunted practice.
The edge bit.
There was resistance—then a tearing shriek like tortured metal.
Sparks burst from the wound.
The machine staggered.
Everyone froze.
Daniel stared. "You—"
"I know!" Marcus barked.
The red band flickered erratically. The machine swung wildly. Eli darted in with a shout that was half terror, half exultation, and thrust his spear into the opening Marcus had made.
The tip punched through.
This time the sound was different.
Not metal.
Something deeper cracking.
The machine convulsed. Its limbs spasmed, clamps gouging trenches in the dirt. The red light strobed, then went dark.
It collapsed at Marcus's feet.
Silence swallowed the fairgrounds.
For a heartbeat, no one breathed.
Then Gabe whispered, "It worked."
Daniel crouched beside the fallen machine. He reached out, hesitated, then tapped the split plating with the back of his gauntlet.
"Bullets were bouncing off these things on the news this morning," he said slowly. "They said nothing was getting through."
Marcus looked down at the blackened edge of his blade. It smoked faintly.
"We're not bullets," he said.
From beyond the trees came another grinding whine.
Then three more red lights ignited in the shadows.
Eli let out a shaky laugh. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Marcus raised his shield again.
Around him, men and women in borrowed centuries lifted swords, axes, maces—some real, some not. Those with rattan dropped it and ran for their cars. Those with steel stepped forward.
"Shields up!" Marcus shouted. "Lock together! If you've got a bow, get behind us!"
There was confusion. Panic.
And then, almost unbelievably, obedience.
Years of drills at weekend practices snapped into place. Shields overlapped. A rough line formed.
The machines emerged from the trees.
Three of them.
Identical.
Unhurried.
The red bands brightened as one.
Gabe drew and loosed in a single fluid motion. The arrow struck the nearest machine in the throat seam Marcus had found. It punched in and stuck, quivering.
The machine faltered.
Daniel grinned fiercely. "Seams and joints! Same as armor!"
"Left one's mine!" Eli shouted.
The machines charged.
The impact when they hit the shield wall drove Marcus back a step—but not two. Wood and steel rang. The line bent, held.
"Now!" Marcus roared.
Axes rose and fell. Spears thrust. A mace crashed down on a metal knee with a sound like a car wreck in miniature.
One machine broke through the line, slamming a fighter aside. It turned its red gaze toward Gabe.
Marcus saw it happen in stretched, terrible clarity.
The machine lunged.
Gabe didn't run.
He dropped the bow, drew the short sword at his hip, and stepped into the attack like he was stepping onto the line field for a final bout.
The blade flashed.
He cut not at the plating, but at the narrow channel beneath the arm as it rose to strike.
The sword disappeared to the hilt.
The machine froze.
Then split open in a shower of sparks.
It fell at his feet.
The last machine tried to retreat.
Daniel's poleaxe hooked its leg. Eli drove his spear into its back. Marcus brought his sword down two-handed into the glowing band of red light.
The blade punched through.
The light died.
For a long moment, only ragged breathing filled the air.
Three machines lay smoking in the grass.
Around them, men and women in medieval armor stared at their bloodless, sparking corpses.
From somewhere far off came more sirens.
And something heavier.
Marcus pulled his sword free and looked at his brothers.
Daniel's face was pale beneath his helm.
Gabe retrieved his bow with shaking hands.
Eli was grinning like he'd just discovered fire.
Marcus turned toward the tree line where more red lights flickered between the trunks.
His voice, when he spoke, carried across the field.
"Get the real steel," he said. "All of it."
The machines in the trees began to move.
And for the first time in a thousand years, a shield wall formed not for sport—
—but for survival.