The voice came through the city's emergency broadcast speakers, cracking and distorted. The Queen was safe in the Southern Fortress, tucked away behind miles of stone while her people got eaten.
"James of the Third Vanguard," she announced, her voice cold and sharp. "For the murder of the King and high treason, a bounty of ten million credits is placed on his head. Dead or alive. Any who harbor him will be gutted alongside him."
I leaned back against the damp wood of a booth in The Rusty Bolt. Mo was sitting across from me, staring at a lukewarm mug of piss-colored ale. Outside, the sounds of the city dying were muffled by the heavy basement walls, but the screaming never really stopped.
"Ten million," Mo muttered, wiping a streak of black soot across his forehead. "I should kill you myself and retire in the Isles."
"Try it and I'll bury this Gear Six in your throat," I said.
The door at the top of the stairs kicked open with a bang that shook the dust off the ceiling. Heavy boots—hundreds of them—hit the street outside. Then, a laugh. A loud, booming roar of a laugh that made my skin crawl.
"Where is he?!" a woman yelled. "Where's my favorite little traitor? I haven't had a decent fight in three years!"
Mabeth.
She stepped into the tavern like she owned the world. She was a wall of a woman, six-foot-six of solid muscle and scarred skin. Her armor was battered, stained with the dried remains of whatever she'd been killing in the East. She had a massive Gear Four cannon strapped to her thigh and a tankard of beer in her hand that looked tiny in her grip.
She grabbed a regular at the bar by the back of his neck. The man shrieked, dropping his glass.
"You seen a grumpy prick named James?" she asked, grinning. Her teeth were white against her blood-streaked face.
"I... I don't know!" the man sobbed.
Mabeth sighed and slammed his head into the bar. The wood splintered, and his nose exploded, spraying red across the counter. She tossed his limp body aside like a sack of grain and took a long swig of her beer.
"He's here," she announced to her troops pouring in behind her. "I can feel the bastard's sour mood."
I gripped the hilt of my blade under the table. Mo reached for a grenade.
Mabeth kicked a table out of her way, sending it flying into a wall where it shattered into toothpicks. She looked toward our booth, her eyes glowing with that faint, predatory light of the Dragon Spirit.
"Found you," she barked, her grin widening. "Ready to die, James? Or do I have to kill everyone in this room first?"
I stood up. My legs felt like lead, but my grip was steady.
"You always did talk too much, Mabeth," I said.
She laughed again, a raw, happy sound, and reached for that massive Gear Four.
I didn't wait for her to finish her beer. I pulled the Gear Six and snapped a shot at her face.
The heavy slug caught Mabeth right above the eye. Her head snapped back, a spray of red and white painting the wall behind her. She hit the floor like a felled oak, her tankard shattering and spilling cheap ale into the pool of her own blood.
"Mabeth!" one of her soldiers screamed, lunging forward with a bayonet.
"Now, Mo! Do it!" I roared.
Mo didn't hesitate. He slammed a detonator down on the table. The floorboards under our feet didn't just break—they disintegrated. The blast wave shoved my heart into my throat, and then the world fell away.
We dropped twelve feet into the dark, landing in a knee-deep river of shit and piss. Above us, the tavern floor was a jagged hole framed by fire. I could hear Mabeth's veterans screaming, firing their weapons blindly into the smoke.
"Move!" I grabbed Mo by his gear and hauled him through the sludge.
I looked back for a second. Mabeth was standing at the edge of the hole. Half her forehead was a jagged mess of bone and torn skin, one eye hanging by a red string, but she was laughing. That goddamn dragon blessing was stitching her back together while I watched. She wiped a glob of brains off her cheek and spat into the sewer.
"Nice shot, James!" she yelled down, her voice echoing in the tunnel. "I'm going to pull your spine out through your throat for that!"
She leveled that Gear Four cannon-pistol.
"Down!" I tackled Mo into the filth just as a blast of white-hot energy tore through the tunnel.
The explosion turned a brick pillar into dust and boiled the sewer water instantly. A rat floating nearby cooked in a second, its skin peeling back from its bones.
"Go! Go! Go!" Mo scrambled up, coughing and gagging on the stench.
We sprinted deeper into the dark, our boots splashing through the waste. Behind us, I heard the heavy thud of Mabeth jumping down into the muck. She wasn't even running. She was stalking.
"Ten million credits, James!" her voice boomed, wet and distorted by her shattered jaw. "I'm coming to collect!"
I didn't look back again. I just kept running, my lungs burning and my hands shaking as I slammed a fresh mag into the Gear Six.
"Over here, you dumb bitch!" I yelled, splashing through a foot of raw sewage.
Mabeth was right on our heels. I could hear her heavy boots crunching through the filth, and that wet, gurgling laugh of hers was getting louder. Mo was wheezing, his face turning a sick shade of green as we hit the Sector Four junction. This was the spot. The pipes here were rusted through, leaking thick, yellow clouds of methane that hung in the air like a funeral shroud.
"James!" Mo gasped, pointing at a pressure valve.
"Get around the corner!" I shoved him into a side tunnel and pulled a flare from my belt.
Mabeth rounded the bend, her Gear Four glowing. Half her face was still a red, pulpy mess, bone showing through where my bullet had chewed her up. She raised that cannon-pistol, her one good eye locked on me.
"End of the line, traitor," she croaked.
"Eat this," I said.
I flicked the flare. The spark hit the gas and the world turned into a furnace.
The explosion ripped through the tunnel like a physical fist. I dived behind a stone pillar just as a wall of fire roared past. Mabeth didn't have time to move. The blast caught her square in the chest, throwing her back into the brickwork. I heard her armor melt and her skin sizzle, a high-pitched scream cutting through the roar of the fire.
The ceiling buckled. Tons of stone and street-level debris came crashing down, burying the junction in a mountain of rubble and twisted iron. A soldier who had been following her got caught under a falling slab; his legs stayed on our side of the pile, twitching in the muck while the rest of him was flattened into a red stain.
"Go! Now!" I grabbed Mo's shoulder.
We didn't look back to see if she crawled out. We scrambled into the maze of the Old City tunnels, a network of crumbling brick and dead-ends that haven't been on a map in a century. We ran until my lungs felt like they were full of broken glass and my legs gave out.
We slumped against a damp wall, listening to the distant echoes of the city burning above us.
"Did we get her?" Mo asked, wiping a smear of someone else's blood off his chin.
"No," I spat, staring into the dark. "That dragon bitch is too angry to die from a little fire. But we bought ourselves an hour."
I looked at the Gear Six in my hand. It was covered in filth and gore, but it was still heavy.
"We need to find the rest of the squad," I said. "Before she digs herself out."
We crawled out of a drainage pipe into the Black Market district. It was a hellscape of scrap metal and shacks built into the foundations of the Upper City. Scavengers and bottom-feeders were everywhere, stripping gear off dead soldiers who had fallen from the bridges above.
I saw a kid sawing the finger off a corpse just to get a wedding ring. I kicked him out of the way and kept moving toward Butcher's shop.
"James, look," Mo whispered.
A group of Bounty Hunters had a Ranker pinned against a brick wall. They weren't killing him quick. They had a rusted Gear Two saw-blade humming, and they were taking his legs off inch by inch. The man's screams were wet and high-pitched. One of the hunters was holding a bucket, catching the spray.
"Ignore them," I said, gripping my Gear Six. "We don't have the ammo to play hero."
We reached Butcher's. The front window was smashed, and a severed head was mounted on a spike near the door. I pushed inside. Butcher was behind the counter, wiping blood off a heavy-duty shotgun.
"Ten million on your head, James," Butcher said without looking up. "You're a walking paycheck."
"Try it, Butcher, and I'll blow your lungs out onto that back wall," I growled. I slammed a handful of stolen credits onto the glass. "I need armor-piercing rounds for the Gear Six and a kinetic vest. Now."
Butcher grunted and tossed a crate onto the counter. It was filled with black-market shells and a scarred chest plate.
"Mabeth is tearing up the sewers looking for you," Butcher said, his voice low. "She's got a squad of Eastern Vets burning every hole they find. They found a group of your old scouts near the harbor. Skinned them and hung them from the cranes."
Mo cursed, his hands shaking as he loaded a fresh mag. "The harbor? That was our exit."
"Change of plans," I said, cinching the vest tight over my bruised ribs.
I looked at a pile of discarded Gear parts in the corner. There was a jagged, heavy-duty combat knife sitting on top of a heap of rusted scrap. I grabbed it and shoved it into my belt.
"We're going to the harbor," I said. "If Mabeth wants to hang people, she can start with her own damn officers."
I walked back out into the rain. A scavenger was trying to pick through Mo's pockets. I didn't say a word; I just drove the butt of my gun into the man's temple. His skull made a soft, crunching sound, and he slumped into the mud.
"Let's go," I barked. "The bitch is waiting."