Chapter 16

16

Field of Golems

We all drew our weapons.The wind’s icy fangs bit at my cheeks, piercing my skin. I stood ready with my sword, the blade’s silky silver surface twinkling with the reflected lights of a million tiny snowflakes.

Blue lights flickered on behind the golems’ eyes, shining out like stars. The deafening screech of stiff metal joints tore through the snowy plains, heralding the awakening of the giants.

“Oh, shit.”

“You said it,” Silas commented beside me.

He’d already drawn the largest weapons on him, two moderately curved Crescent swords with ninety-centimeter blades and red lanyards attached to the hilts. He liked to joke that they were ‘twin knives’. Twin two-handed swords—each wielded one-handed by the behemoth Phantom—would have been closer to the truth.

“The princes are on the other side of this field,” Jason told me.

Of course they were. The universe had a wicked sense of humor.

The Phantoms exchanged wary looks. That didn’t bode well for our upcoming fight.

“Have you fought golems before?” I asked them.

“Yes,” they said in unison. There was a dark finality in their tone.

I looked at the sword in the nearest golem’s hand. It was twice as long as I was tall. “How do we defeat them?”

“Aim for the knees, elbows, and hips—anything that’s a joint,” Jason said.

Silas looked at Leonidas and Marin. “If you can toss a bomb through its mouth, that would be even better.”

Silas’s eyes iced over. Jason’s burned blacker. Both Phantoms stalked toward the golems with dark purpose.

As the front golem began to sink its weight into its knees, I sprinted forward, racing it to its first step. I swung my sword back, preparing to aim for the flexible mesh of the golem’s exposed knee. I failed to find it. The damn thing was wearing knee armor.

I concentrated on my sword, drawing on my connection to Jason. Blue phantom flames burst to life on my blade. I cut forward with my sword again. The blade sank right through the golem’s armor. All around the slash, metal bubbled and melted away. I pressed harder, trying to sink it in even deeper. The air was heavy with the stench of burning metal.

The golem stumbled in its step. I saw its arms, as thick around as old sequoias, barreling down to brace its fall. I jumped aside just as metal hands slapped down against the ground. Impact tremors rocked beneath my boots, following me.

As I evaded, Silas charged. It took him only three powerful strides to reach the golem. He hopped from hand to elbow, then dashed up the arm and over its shoulder to stand behind the head. Squatting into his knees, he locked his hands under its jaw—or what would have been the jaw on a living creature—and pulled up. The muscles along his arms and legs, every line clearly visible under the skintight fabric of his bodysuit, tightened and bulged from the strain, but the head remained firmly attached.

“Hit it again!” he called down to me as the golem began to rise.

The machine had made it nearly to its feet when I slashed through the other knee. It collapsed onto its hands again, hopefully buying Silas a few more seconds. The Phantom’s strained face glowed bright crimson, and he was pulling up with his arms and legs now.

“Leonidas, get ready!” he shouted, rising slowly. Sparks shot up all around him.

With one final, strained heave, Silas tore the head off the golem. The machine lifted its arms, trying to pat the hole where its head had once been. Since it was on its knees, its weight partially supported by its hands, its entire chest smashed hard against the ground. I slipped out of the way before it could crush me.

The golem was flapping about like a grounded fish. Silas pointed at the hole he’d torn, then jumped off as Leonidas tossed one of his bombs through the opening. The disc clanked and clunked, then exploded.

I ducked as severed metal limbs flew over my head. Melted wires hung out of the hole in the golem’s chest, drooping like dying plants. The blue lights went out inside the head Silas held in his hand. The golem’s horned head alone was a third of Silas’s height and made of solid armored metal. And he held it easily in one hand, as though it weighed nothing.

I gazed across the snowy field. In the meantime, Jason and Father had taken down another golem. Ariella and Marin were battling a third.

Silas pitched the head he was holding. It hit another golem. The machine caught the head, dropped it, then stomped down hard to crush it into a flat sheet.

“It looks mad,” Leonidas pointed out to Silas.

“It’s not a living being. It has no feelings.”

A silver sliver cut through the snowy air. I pushed Leonidas to the ground, saving him from being decapitated by the silver saucer. It slammed hard into the debris behind us, scattering the pieces.

Leonidas was right. That golem did look upset.

The golem charged at us, the ground quaking beneath its feet. It knocked Silas aside, then swung its sword at me and Leonidas. I blocked the strike, praying that my slender blade would not break under the force of the golem’s mighty weapon—and that my arms wouldn’t break either. The pressure was enormous, like trying to hold up a falling building. My feet slid back against the ground before I managed to steady myself.

The seconds dripped by, trickling streams of sweat down my neck. My arms would collapse soon, and the moment that happened, the golem’s enormous blade would plummet down like a guillotine and split me right in two.

Silas launched himself onto the golem’s shoulder. He plunged his burning blades into its chest, cutting and swirling at the tangled mess of wires, mixing them all together. The pressure on my sword eased, and I took my chance to get out from under the machine. I slipped out of reach but not quickly enough. The golem’s thick blade slashed the back of my shoulder as I turned, splattering the snow with my blood.

Jason was already by my side. He set his hand on my arm, his black eyes fading marginally to copper-brown. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I assured him, coughing. “Just a scratch.”

Pushing through the pulsing ravine of pain that slit across my back, I tightened my fumbling grip on my sword and valiantly tried not to pass out.

Silas stepped toward us, what remained of his golem foe crumbling to pieces behind him. “Brace yourselves. They’re coming.”

The remaining three golems were closing in fast. Jason took two steps forward, his arms raised. Then—bracing his soles against the ground, his snow-sprinkled hair rippling in the wind like dark flames—he thrust his hands forward. Metal screeched in protest, and a golem shot back, colliding hard with the next closest one. As the two golems tumbled into a twisted heap, the third golem charged at Jason.

The ground quaked, thumping ever louder with every step that the golem took toward us. Its sword was nearly within striking range. I swung around, preparing myself to confront it, when a piece of metal the size of a tree trunk thudded against the golem’s back, sending it into a nosedive. Almost immediately, it was back on its feet. The severed golem arm Silas had thrown fell to the ground behind it.

The three remaining golems weren’t going down without a fight, but there was an opening in their line. Jason waved everyone forward. We all took off running across the field.

The golems spread out to confront us. Jason and Silas met them head-on, holding them off to buy the rest of us time to get across the field. I stole a look behind me. A wave of magic tore out of the Phantoms like a telekinetic tsunami, blasting back the golems.

Blood trickled down the Phantoms’ faces and arms. It slid down their sword points, flicking a trail of crimson drops behind them as they ran to catch up with us. The Phantoms were supernaturally fast, but the golems were even faster. And the machines’ injuries didn’t slow them down. They were quickly closing the distance.

“They’re not going to make it,” I said, biting my lip.

I stepped forward, ready to run to Jason and Silas, when Leonidas’s arm barred my way.

“Wait.” He opened his hand just long enough to show me the bomb on his palm, then he hurled it at the golems. “Duck!” he shouted.

Not slowing their pace, the two Phantoms threw themselves into a roll. The bomb whizzed over their heads. As they catapulted themselves forward, the sound of a thousand colliding pots clamored and roared across the snowy field. The impact took out what little was left of the golems. The blue lights in their eyes went out.

Gunfire tore through my relief. The golems might have been down, but an army of soldiers in white uniforms were waiting for us.