Dark Convergence - By Dave Gross Page 0,47
beside the storm knights, by turns slaying foes and healing allies.
The priest coughed as Bronwyn emerged from the casualty tent. The druid ignored him and spoke to Nemo. “She will sleep now.”
“I appreciate your warning, Bronwyn. You must return to your tent now. The guards will keep you safe during the battle ahead of us.”
“I will be of no use to you in my tent,” she said.
“Are you saying you prefer we release you?”
“My people may not fight beside you in this battle with the Convergence,” she said. “But if you allow it, I will.”
Nemo fixed his gaze on her, wondering what secrets lay behind those bright green eyes. He made his decision.
“Finch, ready your stormsmiths. I want the Striders on either side of the front line, and send word to both flanking teams. Chaplain Geary, report to Major Blackburn. You will fight with the storm knights. I want all units ready to move within half an hour.”
“What about me?” said Bronwyn.
Nemo beckoned to the guard who held the druid’s long axe. He took it from the man and handed it to Bronwyn.
“You will come with me,” he said. “Help us bring the storm to Calbeck.”
Aurora
Beneath the astronometric nexus, enormous gears jolted into motion as Aurora and Sabina returned from their inspection of Calbeck. Unlike the animal clamor Aurora had heard when she first arrived in Calbeck, this sound only seemed chaotic. As she listened closely, Aurora perceived the mathematical precision of the hundreds of different clicks and whines. In its way, the apparent cacophony was as beautiful as any symphony, as holy as any equation.
“Numen!” cried Sabina. While her chromium face betrayed no emotions, Aurora heard the exultation in her lieutenant’s mechanical voice. “The realignment has begun!”
Unlike her lieutenant, Aurora could still smile. Even as she allowed herself to do so, she thought ruefully on the manner in which Sebastian Nemo had turned her words against her. Her smile froze upon her face, as cold and reflective as those of her clockwork angels.
Aurora wondered whether she was truly as transparent as Nemo’s barbs suggested. Verbally, she had always been able to outmaneuver others with great ease. Yet most of those around her, she understood, were minds encased in mechanikal bodies, devoid of the fragile human senses that confused and injured their emotions. Beyond them, she was surrounded only by insensate machines, beautiful in their functional perfection, but incapable of offering challenges.
Even as she recognized her disdain for others who continued to await the honor of transference, like Enumerator Bogdan, Aurora could not understand why she must share their fate. More than anyone, she had proven herself worthy of a perfect physical vessel.
Still, there was something about Nemo that allowed him to strike at her heart—or, more aptly, at the very core of her thoughts.
Did he possess some special insight into her psyche because of his great intellect and achievements? After all, he and she were not so different in that regard. Aurora’s own title, Numen of Aerogenesis, was proof of her greatest accomplishment: flight. Was that not every bit as worthy as any technological advance that Nemo had made for the Cygnar forces?
“Numen!” cried Sabina.
The tower loomed before her. Aurora banked, veering away before she could strike the southeastern corner.
She shook her head to dispel the useless recriminations that plagued her mind. Focusing once more on the sound of giant gears—the sound of progress toward completion of the Great Work—Aurora performed a perfect barrel roll and swooped beneath the arches to fly up into the shelter of her aerie.
Her officers awaited her arrival. To either side, her clockwork angels stepped in to flank her. Sabina took her position two steps behind Aurora’s right shoulder.
Prime Enumerator Septimus stood before Aurora, Enumerator Bogdan just beside and behind him. No other enumerators or optifex joined their leaders, for they were all devoted to the operation. Only in the event of an attack would they emerge to tend the vectors and clockwork soldiers defending the site.
First Prefect Pollux stood beside other first prefects of each type of clockwork vessel: the shield-locking obstructor, the eradicator with protean shields on both arms, the reductor wielding a swarm projector on one arm and a retractable blade on the other, the javelin-launching perforator, and the deadly reciprocator with its massive protean polearm. The clockwork soldiers greeted her arrival with a perfectly sequenced bow. The observation deck shuddered as they moved their feet in unison.
Prime Enumerator Septimus stepped forward. “All troops prepared for battle, Numen.”
Aurora had not informed