Knight Allen Bari

  We came in hot.

  We absolutely lacked formation in the approach. The sky cracked open and we dropped straight through it, thrusters burning blue-white as the ground rushed up to meet us. The knights and men-at-arms jumped when they got close enough. The suits absorbed the impact the way they were built to, force rolling through layered reinforcement, Arcanum taking the hit before bone ever felt it.

  I straightened as my boots bit into stone.

  I checked my armor, running diagnostics on all systems, double-checking the plates as they locked and re-locked while synchronization completed. From the outside, it looked like a single piece—dark steel and rune-etched plating shaped like a knight out of old heraldry. From the inside, it was a living system: Technica responding to breath and posture, Aura reinforcing every joint, every motion amplified but never sloppy, Arcanum reserves topping off in steady pulses.

  My sword came down into my hand as if it had always been there.

  It was longer than most people were tall, a slab of metal balanced so precisely that it felt lighter than it had any right to be. Reinforcement ran through it in steady channels, becoming an extension of the armor and my Aura.

  “Ground secured,” someone reported over the channel.

  I scanned the grounds. Saying it was secured was generous. Smoke drifted across shattered grass. Stone had been carved away in a straight, impossible line, glowing faintly where reality still hadn’t decided it was finished reacting. Bodies lay scattered—mercenaries, zealots, equipment torn apart like toys left too close to a forge.

  This wasn’t a skirmish. It was a straight-up battle. What the hell were these people doing in our backyard, and how the hell did Intelligence miss this?

  “Specialists forward,” I ordered. “Knights hold line.”

  They moved immediately.

  Not knights—specialists. Men and women in lighter frames, Technica dominant, expressions used as fuel rather than focus. Rifles hummed with Aura channels. Blades carried active spells. They didn’t center themselves the way knights did. They adjusted, calibrated, and synced.

  A different kind of dangerous.

  We advanced in controlled waves, suppressing pockets of resistance as they surfaced. Aura rifle fire cut across the grounds. Arcanum pulses slammed into barricades. My sword came down once, twice—each strike a clean, devastating arc that shattered armor and sent bodies flying without slowing me down.

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  This was what we were trained for. By the time the last organized resistance broke, the night had gone strangely quiet again.

  That was when the call came through.

  “Captain,” a voice said, sharp and precise. “Are you in command?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Identify.”

  “Bonnie Calder—Independent Mercenary—Black Rank. You can check my credentials with the Central Bureau out of Dakan. I’m operating Tech on-site. Listen very carefully to me.”

  I slowed my advance instinctively.

  “Go on.”

  “Do not make any sudden moves or shows of force toward the north structure,” she said. “That’s where the hostages are. My… associate is there.”

  Associate.

  I didn’t like how she said that.

  “I have twenty knights and a full Specialist complement,” I said. “We can—”

  “If you do not do as I say, the only thing you are going to accomplish is getting your people killed,” she cut in. “Or worse.”

  “Your associate is going to take on twenty fully armored knights and a contingent of specialists?” I frowned. “Is there some sort of descended demigod I am unaware of?”

  There was a pause.

  Then, quietly, “What’s your name, Captain?”

  “Allen Bari,” I said. “Knight-Captain of the First Chapter, Knight Order of the Silent Decree.”

  “Alright, Captain,” she said. “Listen to me. The person you’re approaching is the single most dangerous Arcane Artist I have ever known. I am not worried about him. I am worried about you and everyone you brought with you. If you go in there spells blazing, you are going to get people killed. Do not send your people in aggressively. He just saved a lot of civilians, and some of them died before he got there. He is really, really angry about it. When he is angry, bad things happen.”

  That earned a sharp laugh from one of my lieutenants.

  I didn’t join him.

  I remembered the pillar of light visible from half the island. I remembered the carved ground and the remnants of a battle we had not fought. If one person had accomplished that, caution was the wiser course.

  “What do you suggest, Mercenary Calder?”

  “Is the area secure?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Perimeter locked. No active threats outside the north structure.”

  “Good,” she replied. “Then de-escalate. I will ask him to come out. Slowly.”

  I nodded once, though she could not see it.

  “Understood.”

  We advanced carefully, knights spreading out, specialists hanging back. The barrier over the north structure was obvious now—a dome of spell-crafted Arcanum that bent light and sound, humming with restrained power.

  Then it parted.

  Someone stepped out.

  He was carrying a child.

  She was asleep—or close to it—head tucked against his shoulder, one small hand fisted in the fabric of his coat. He held her like she weighed nothing, like she belonged there.

  The sword in his other hand was wrong. A black-matted construct so dense with power I could feel it from where I stood.

  Then I saw the mask.

  I knew it.

  Only one person would wear it. Only one person would have the audacity to wear it here. It was a trademark, a symbol—ubiquitous and infamous, almost legendary.

  Every academy cadet whispered about that mask and the man who wore it. It was like a ghost story you told yourself wasn’t real.

  My breath caught before I could stop it.

  “What the hell…” someone muttered over the channel.

  I didn’t answer.

  I was staring at the impossible truth walking toward us through the ruins of a battlefield.

  The Ghost of the Wastes was here.

  And he was holding a child as if the world had never hurt her at all.