The Way of Caine ,The Warcaster Chronicl - By Miles Holmes Page 0,30

a groan, he let go the weather vane, and flashed down. The sentries heard only a faint whoosh at his passing. As he appeared on a drainpipe above the trash heap, he let himself fall, aiming for some discarded canvas wrappings. He grunted on impact, and came up sputtering. Ace poked his head from within the culvert, curious. Caine was already on his feet, and pumping his legs as fast as they would go across the belt. He could feel its thoughts probing his own as he ran.

Umbrella? it asked.

“There’s no time! RUN!” He thought back, running past some bewildered corpsmen.

“Hey! You can’t …” one of them shouted. In the next instant, the man was nearly trampled as Ace bounded past, the earth shaking with its heavy footfalls. Around the camp, the alarm went up. Llaelese regulars came running, weapons at the ready. Too late. The odd couple of Caine and Ace had dashed, flashed and leapt their way clear of the belt before a single shot could be fired, or anyone could figure what had happened.

Caine leapt over brush and puddle alike, running faster than he’d ever been pushed at the academy. Sweat poured down his face, and here and there, he flashed forward where the marsh would have stuck him in. He vanished mid-stride, appearing yards ahead on a tilted tree trunk. He ran up the ramp it created, higher and higher. At the end, some twenty feet in the air, he leapt clear of a wide pond below. He struck the soft ground on his feet and kept running without breaking stride. Ace was born for this. It easily kept pace alongside, through puddle or brush.

They were nearly there.

He could hear the strange mortar fire of the enemy, and see it just over the trees. He had to keep going. It may have already been too late, but he had to try.

When Caine at last broke into the clearing, he found the blank faces of a half dozen weapon crews manning both mortar and field gun batteries. He had crashed into the back end of a mercenary line, and his surprise was mirrored on the faces of the hardened men before him. For a moment, they were speechless, their eyes looking up at the shadowy hulk in his wake. One by one, they began to fumble for their sidearms, shouting as they did.

Caine looked at Ace with a feral grin. He ran forward, his Spellstorms drawn and spitting fire. To the left and right of his approach, men fell, their weapons unfired.

Ace advanced, firing as it went. The overpowered Longarm pulped a mercenary as he tried to duck behind his mortar. The man crumpled without a sound, oozing blood into the wet ground.

Only a single shot resisted their charge. A trooper aimed and fired at Caine, a second too late. Caine had already vanished in smoke, to reappear behind the stunned man. Caine executed him from behind with a single blast to the base of his skull.

Looking around, he heard battle raging beyond the thicket, into the baron’s estate. He looked at Ace, shaking his head.

“Just what do you suppose this is all about?” Ace offered no reply, watching his master in silence.

“That makes two of us, then.” Caine shook his head and reloaded his Spellstorms, while compelling Ace to scuttle the abandoned guns. The agile warjack obliged, bringing his broad axe down in three fluid strokes. As he did, Caine saw company coming.

“Why have you men stopped firing? We are on the verge of assaulting their position!” The shout of a woman sounded through the woods. It was her voice. With it came red eyes in the tree line, and the smell of smoke in the air. Trees cracked and snapped as they came, and Caine compelled Ace back to cover. Like a shadow, his ‘jack disappeared.

“What have you done? What have you done?” A woman’s voice shouted from the other side of the thicket. Lily Von Baum regarded the carnage with shock, brandishing a cruel looking grenade launcher. Her wide eyes narrowed as she spotted him. The claws of her platemail snapped down, digging into the earth. So braced, and leveled her grenade launcher his way. Caine groaned.

Thump thump thump!

Shells whistled in the sky, and burst spectacularly overhead. Reflexively, Caine flashed away, narrowly avoiding the barrage. Her claws unfolding back up, she limped toward him, bathed in a halo of light. Her launcher cracked open, and she slid more shells home, before snapping the weapon