Chapter Twenty-Nine - Watching the Storm

I found a nice spot to hide in, tucked away behind a set of large stones that were a good few feet taller than Rusty. The stone was sanded smooth on the wind-facing side, and a rocky mess on the opposite side.

The outcropping was big enough, with cover on three sides. Not a cave, but nearly.

From the way a few logs were laid out within and the pit dug nearby, I guessed that the place had been used by some intrepid travellers before.

I knelt down with Rusty, back towards the wind and head tilted up so that I could see the more or less cleared plains to the east.

My entire body was tingling. Or rather, Rusty was. The magical currents in the air snapped at Rusty’s skin, sometimes slipping past the armour and into the thin magical circuitry within. It was as if Rusty was wearing a woolen sweater and shuffling across a massive rug.

I turned most of Rusty’s systems off, leaving just a few on. If we were struck it was best to have a few things on to take the brunt of the damage. Then I disconnected, slowly and carefully.

Returning to being just me, after the constant humming buzz of magic pushing through Rusty was... not that amusing, actually, the disorientation was worse, somehow.

“I hate being hooked in before a storm,” I said.

“What about during one?” Clin asked.

“That’s a good way to lose your mind,” I said. “We’re cutting it closer than I’d like as is.”

“I see,” Clin said. “I never piloted a mech before.”

I snorted and leaned into my seat, making myself comfortable. The cabin was glowing already, light slipping from the engine at the back and bathing everything in soft light. Orange, then green then blue, each change coming and going like slow breathing.

“I’d never have guessed,” I said.

“When did you start? You pilot without seeming to think about it much.”

“Thinking about it?” I asked.

Clin shifted. “Yes. As I’ve said, my clan does engineering. I’ve gotten my hands dirty on experimental mecha designs before. I’ve seen rookie pilots too, they need to think of every motion. Even the more experienced pilots deliberate a little more than you.”

“Oh,” I said. “When do you start training your pilots?”

“When they reach adulthood and complete a few years of basic schooling,” Clin said. “Mecha are dangerous, you don’t let just anyone in one.”

“I started when I was... can’t remember. Young. My dad got his hands on this loading mech. Old human thing. Though, fairly light. Clunky as all hell.”

“What did you father need the mech for?”

I looked out onto the plains. The wind was whipping at what little grass was out there, and most of the plants were either being torn apart or were flinging seeds into the wind. “Ah, nothing special, my dad was a stonemason, worked for a little company in Galenook. Built the walls, some homes. The mech was for hauling rocks, basically.”

“Respectable work.”

“Kept us fed,” I agreed. “Anyway, got really good with that little thing. When I transitioned to a real mech it was a bit more complicated, but I got the hang of it. How about you? You keep saying you’re an engineer, but that’s about all I know.”

“Engineering is a wide field. You either pick something very small and specific and master that, or you learn the craft itself and learn how to do a bit of everything. My family, my clan, we specialize in all sorts of technologies, but I turned towards habitation, specifically mechanized ones.”

“Habitation... like, mecha interiors?” I asked.

“Air sealing, cleaning, purification, ergonomics and control layouts, stowage and storage,” Clin said. “It’s a bit of a niche, but it’s one that few engineers specialized in. You wouldn’t imagine how many vehicles have poorly designed interiors. Case in point, your Rusty here. This cabin is nearly twice the volume it ought to be.”

“You want less space in here?” I asked.

“It would save on cooling efficiency, less mass overall, you would be able to move some of the controls to the walls and still have them in reach. This isn’t meant to carry two people, of course. In this current situation, the lack of efficiency is welcome.”

“Hrm,” I said. I kinda saw where he was coming from. Rusty wasn’t a warmech, and it showed. “Fair enough. That hab module, when we first met?”

“One of mine, yes. To allow a standard elven warmech to carry a single passenger in relative comfort. Small engine to run a cooling system, dampers and springs all around, a few windows to give the passenger a view and a communication system, basically a pre-set radio, to speak to the pilot. They were moderately popular. Cheap enough to make, and some of the elves with better blood like the idea of arriving at an event on the back of a mech.”

I shook my head. “Sounds like a waste to me.”

“The military version has more windows, a rear-facing seat and a small machine-gun. Nothing impressive, but it also sold relatively well. For scouting mechs, mostly.”

That did sound a little more impressive. Mecha, on account of how they were usually built, were weak from the rear.

Rusty shifted as the wind picked up, and the cores around the engine flickered.

A glance outside revealed the wind slicing by, big washes of sand cutting ahead hard and fast enough to draw blood. A flash in the distance and a plume of sand rose. For a good dozen seconds a bluish arc connected the earth and the sky, twisting like a strand of hair in a breeze, often against the direction of the wind. Then it snapped and another explosion hit the distant sand.

“We’re in it,” I said.

Clin stood. He was bent, head resting next to mine in a way that was almost intimate as we watched the sky fill with twisting tails of magical energy. Sometimes they’d dart down and glass the ground, sometimes they sliced by, leaving glowing furrows in the ground that were washed away by the wind a moment later.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I heard a heavy plonk as something hit Rusty. I looked up, then heard another, then another.

The deluge came a moment later, a veritable wall of water slashing down from the sky as if a million buckets had all been tipped at once. The sand turned to mud near-instantly, and some of the braver plants started to fight the wind to slip out of the ground and soak it all in.

Even with Rusty’s hat, our visors were soon covered in wet, and it became impossible to see much at all.

“That’s the end of the show,” I said. Now all I could see was the occasional flash through the blurry screen of water.

It didn’t last. The water passed and was replaced by a heavy mist, so thick that if I rose Rusty’s hand we wouldn’t be able to see it from a foot away.

The steam out there was warm, and I started to feel it as the cabin warmed.

“So, how does an engineer that works on mecha interiors end up chasing down a deal for a world-ender bomb?”

“That name always annoyed me,” he said. I wasn’t sure if it was just a comment or a deflection. “The world’s still here, even after everything.”

“Yeah, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a whole deal shittier.”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t around before it went down.... to answer your question, I was meant to head over to the Shadow nation anyway. Cut a deal for some new trade. We learned what the Tarrent’ino were trying to do just some weeks ago. Too little time to arrange another voyage.”

“What were you hoping to do?” I asked.

“Encourage the gnomes not to take the deal.”

I barked a laugh. “How did that work out?” I asked. I sat up a little and started to pull my duster off. It was getting too warm for it.

“Poorly,” Clin said. “Very poorly. The council kicked me out, and I suspect they started to gear up to level accusations against me then and there. Needless to say, our trade agreement didn’t work out either.”

“Then they chased you out to try and kill you?” I asked.

“Oh no, they’re more civil than that. Besides, the accusations against me were nearly baseless. It’s when I spent some good gold getting a letter published in every newspaper in the country that they started gunning for me.”

I blinked. “You did what?”

“You can buy an ad in most newspapers, you must know that?”

“There’s a press in Mortarview, and Daggerwren’s general goods store will sell old copies from Flatbluff and Cinderwren, I’ve glanced at a few. Need to keep my reading sharp.” I didn’t tell him that I was barely beyond sounding my words out on some days.

“Well, I paid well enough for a full page in all six newspapers in the country. A letter to whomever would read it, warning the gnomish people that their government was about to buy a world ender from the elves.” He sounded damned smug. “That’s when they started trying to kill me.”

I chuckled. Clin joined me, and soon the two of us were laughing away while the mists swirled around us and the thunder boomed in the distance.

***