The Way of Caine ,The Warcaster Chronicl - By Miles Holmes Page 0,28

spiked mace longer than Caine was tall, while their other arm mounted short-barreled cannons. They flanked their young master, and steam hissed from them like angry bulls. He could feel they were eager to charge. It must have been a great effort for her to keep them at bay.

“Argiv! Hedo! Steady on!” she said with verve, her steely gaze fixed on Caine. “It is unwise to threaten me, Captain. They … are … very protective.” The elder mercenary, Hector, coughed, but remained silent.

Caine smiled. From the copse, he peered into Ace’s mind. The light warjack had already lined up a headshot on the nearer of the two mules.

Lily narrowed her eyes, still fighting to keep her warjacks restrained when Hector put a hand to her shoulder. “He’s not alone, dear,” he said, squinting in the still blackness.

“Just remember what I said,” Caine said. With a wave, he turned his back to her and stepped off into the shadows.

“I admire your sand, sir, most certain. I should very much like to have seen her face when you gave her your back, as you did.” Reevan shook his head, a wry grin upon it. The ranger sergeant was a shadow in the pale moonlight. Caine nodded, a half smile in response, and compelled Ace to his side.

“This is where we part ways, Sergeant.”

“Sir?”

“Take your boys back. I’ve an errand to run. We’ll see what our new friends are up to tomorrow.”

Reevan nodded, pulling his cloak tight against the cool night air. “Good hunting, sir.”

Caine and Ace ran.

Through peat fields and along the road headed north, they neared the border. As the evening before, Caine knew well enough to bypass the border gates through the woods. He sidestepped only a single patrol this time. He wondered if Ace had been overcompensation. At length, he neared the same hillock overlooking Merywyn as the evening prior. Slowing their pace, he took a breath. Peering out from the cover of brush, his face grew severe, vexed.

“Bloody hell.”

There were … hundreds of them. He stepped back into the brush. Ace watched him with a cocked head, sighing softly with steam. Caine paced a moment, and then looked back upon the wide clearing that formed a belt around the west half of Merywyn. Under the light of torch posts, Llael’s corps of army engineers worked at the nearest extent of the belt, only a dozen yards away. They were setting wooden fence posts, and unfurling wire spools. Closer to the city walls, what looked like two full battle companies of Llaelese regulars, along with numerous heavy laborjacks, were moving supplies. Amongst the mill of soldiers, a series of large brown tents were taking shape, poles lifting the heavy canvas from within.

“They’re pitching a bloody field camp!” Caine hissed an oath. Rebald had been right. Looking up at Ace, he regarded the umbrella upon its shoulder with a scowl. “I’d have been better to try this last night. Now I’m supposed to trust that thing against them?” The warjack raised its broad axe, and pushed the brush back as it did. It indicated a few hundred yards ahead, nearer to the shore of the Black River. The engineer’s perimeter hadn’t reached that far, and the light of the gas lamps was spotty. Caine nodded at the gesture, pulling his chin. “Ech. I reckon that’s as good as we get, eh?”

Ace shrugged. Caine looked ahead to the base of the city walls where a heap of refuse from the army camp lay in piles. Empty crates, barrels and large canvas wrappings had been gathered and abandoned. Adjacent, a large culvert protruded from the wall, large enough to shelter Ace. Every now and again, a heavily burdened laborjack would limp over to the heap from the main staging area, and add to it, though it was otherwise ignored. Caine looked at his warjack skeptically.

“Well, are we doing this or not?”

Ace lurched forward without hesitation, breaking from the edge of their cover. As it did, Caine watched the umbrella begin to stir. A series of vents along the cover of the device glowed cool white, and a haze like heat distortion began to ripple the air around the warjack. By degrees, Caine watched as it increased, until Ace was no more than a strange anomaly in the space before him. Neither visible nor invisible, it was actually uncomfortable to even try to look at. From within the bubble, he could feel his warjack urging him on, impatient. With a groan, he obliged,