Chapter Eight - Surrender

Purple flares meant war.

The meaning was old. Back to when mechs were still new and there were enough people around for actual, large-scale wars to be a thing. That was before, when things were calm and idyllic, way before I was born.

Flares had meant one thing, once. They were signals meant for armies and big caravans to tell each other things. They still were. Most folk were just too wise to waste good materials flinging something into the sky to bother with them.

Still. Purple meant war.

Nowadays it didn’t mean a full-scale battle or anything like that. It was a warning, that there was some fighting going on. A call for help or assistance.

I licked my lips and continued to move Rusty forwards while my mech’s head followed the gently falling trajectory of the second round of flares.

Red.

Green.

Purple.

There was something of a code, out in the Vastness. Not anything verbalized, at least, not beyond the shady tables in the corners of saloons. When someone needed help, you helped them. It was the right thing to do.

You could fleece them for everything they were worth later. That was perfectly fine. Expected, even. But that relied on folk being alive enough to be fleeced.

“Curse all the gods,” I muttered as I shifted Rusty around. We started heading off towards the flares. North and east, judging by the shadows now cast by the sun as it continued to dip.

I made sure my revolver was fully loaded, then checked on my rifle. The flares were a ways away. I wouldn’t be getting near them for a good half-hour at a decent pace, and I wasn’t going at a decent pace. You didn’t run into trouble, you ran out of it.

At some point I slowed down and opened Rusty’s cabin up so that I could grab an ammo pouch with one mechanical hand and hand it off to myself inside. I started reloading my speedloaders for my revolver. Didn’t want to get into any sort of action then find myself loading shells one at a time.

I knew that it would split my attention, and that I’d be walking slower because of it. I didn’t much care, either.

The agreement was to check on folk and help. Not sacrifice yourself running into a heap of sand wyrm dung.

Rusty and I continued to plod along. The Vastness had a few landmarks sticking out of her here and there, though she was mostly a plain kind of place. Lots of nothing but sand, with the occasional bit of rock poking out beneath.

I tried to keep to the rocks. Things lived under the sand, and there was a sort of sand that looked harder than it was. Sinking to mid-calf in a mech was a nightmare to deal with.

I eventually dumped my ammo sack in the corner and gripped the controls properly again. It had been idle work, but walking through the desert was as dull as it was dangerous, even when heading out into the unknown.

The sun hadn’t moved much by the time I came to the top of a rocky dune. I thought I could hear gunfire, but I wasn’t sure. A flare rocketing up unto the sky had me pausing Rusty’s walk. It had come from nearby.

Red, then Green.

I waited.

A third flare, fired at an oblique angle. White. A white flare.

Either someone was trying to light up the daytime, or they were calling out their surrender.

Something exploded out ahead and I grimaced. It sounded as if the call hadn’t been received all that well. Bandits? With mechs? It could be goblins, but they weren’t literate, let alone able to understand flares as anything but pretty colours that came from potential meals.

Reaching over Rusty’s shoulder, I grabbed my mech’s rifle and brought it forwards. I made sure it was plugged in nice and neat, then scanned the horizon left-to-right with Rusty’s eye. Nothing but shimmering reds and oranges.

I didn’t pick up the pace. I wasn’t that kind of fool. Instead I moved at an angle towards where the flares had come from. The nearest dune had a bit of rockiness on one side, and a long sloping river of sand on the other. I placed my bet on whomever was calling for help coming from the side where they’d be safe from the winds. So, someone coming from the north-east.

There wasn’t too much that way.

The Shadow Heights? Those were on the other side of the Shade Givers, that range of mountains between the Vastness and the Fast Depths. Could they be a caravan from the north? Sisterfield was that way, and someone heading to Mortarview or Daggerwren would be passing near where I was now, that was, if they decided not to pass near the mountains and venture into the sands a little more.

It happened. There were good reasons to avoid the Shade Givers. Bandits and young orcs and goblins the least of them. The mountains were home to some nasty sorts of creatures.

The sounds of combat stilled and I walked Rusty to a stop then turned towards the hill. Was the fighting over?

Slowly, I climbed up the dune and leaned Rusty forwards until the mech’s larger arm was touching the ground. Going prone with a mech was rarely a good idea. Still, with the angle of the dune, and the way anything I’d be looking for was down, I didn’t mind leaning a little.

Three things stood out as I peeked over the edge.

First, there were eight forms glowing to Rusty’s eyes. Dark spots against the baked orange sand. Eight mecha. Six of them laying on the ground in states of disrepair.

Second, this wasn’t a bandit attack. The moment I laid my eyes on the meches below, my real eyes, I knew that the war flare had been more literal than I’d expected. Of the eight mechs, three were sleek white things, with long limbs and small cores. Five were stockier. Barely mechs at all, and more like mobile gun platforms with treads and long skids beneath them. Elven mechs, and gnomish wartanks.

Third, whomever it was that piloted those elven mechs had lost.

Smoke still rose from the little battlefield, some of it from the carcasses of mechs, others from bits and pieces of scrap that had been flung out across the sands. I brought my rifle around and had the sights pop up. A bit of magnification would help.

My sights landed on the trio of elven mechs. From the way they were arranged, two of them had gone down trying to protect the third. Those that had fallen were a mess. Rent steel, lots of it blackened and burned, with pock-marks peppered all across them. One was missing an entire arm, and I couldn’t see it anywhere in the rubble.

The other had part of its frame exposed, and I squinted at it. “Damnation,” I muttered. Either the elves painted their frames blue, or these mecha had mithril-alloy frames. I started counting the worth of that in the back of my head, and stopped soon after. There was enough there to set me up for life. If I could mark the location, come back with a few friends. Even split three-ways...

The third mech, the least damaged of the lot, had its legs buckled beneath it and its head was outright missing. The elves had a thing for making their machines very ornate, and this one was no exception. Gilding and sweeping lines all across its body, all ruined by dust and burns.

On the ground next to it was a still-smoking flare gun.

The mech had a pack on its back, one about as big around as its own torso. It opened as I watched and a ladder tumbled down to the sands some feet below.

Someone fell out, landing with a crash onto the ground. I frowned. Not a pilot, I guessed. Not unless the elves could pilot in robes.

I moved my rifle up and inspected the gnomish mecha. They weren’t humanoid like Rusty or the elf mechs. These had squat forms, with a long barreled turret in their middle and three tracks below mounted on articulated legs. There were long skis next to the tracks, allowing them to slide over the ground once they’d built up some speed.

Fast, but not as agile as a proper mech. The turret made up for some of that, and I knew that some of them had more than one pilot within.

Two of them were still functional, though one of those had some plates missing on its side, and there were some holes punched into its armour.

The intact mech rolled forwards, closer to the elf. Its turret turned so that the barrel was pointing towards the man, then a hatch opened atop it.

I narrowed my eyes as a gnome in a leather cap lined with metal plates stood out of the turret until his entire chest was out. He screamed something, but there was no way I’d be able to hear from where I was, let alone from within Rusty.

The elf looked dejected, but raised his arms. He was surrendering?

The gnome shook his head, and tapped the top of his turret.

There were two barrels at the front, a larger bore cannon, and a smaller one next to it. The smaller started to fire, red lines cutting through the air towards the elf. They were off, slicing the air to his right, but someone in the turret started to adjust their aim, walking the shots towards the elf who threw himself down.

I cursed, then did something really stupid.