They shambled, poured, fell or rolled. Like an uncontrollable tide, the Infected entered the station. There was no way the Unbreakable could safely exit Nessa like that, the Infected’s number had to be thinned as well as taken out of the way.

“Fire!”

With that command from Colonel Rommel, a volley was fired towards the invading Infected, destroying and mangling many of them.

“Charge!”

Following Captain Lewis’ command, Franz advanced, cutting down one, two, three enemies. Any more would be going too deep, discipline was paramount to survive against the Infected.

“Fool! I said we would be going with shallow attacks!”

A few meters away, a zealous colleague was a few corpses too deep.

“Fuck! A leaper!”

The Infected was barely seen as it seemingly jumped through the wall of flesh formed by the other Infected. The knight managed to defend the Leaper’s attack with his blade, but was distracted enough for a hand to grab one of his legs, then another grabbed his mount’s leg, teeth sank into another leg. Almost instantly the knight was surrounded by and clung to by many Infected. A strange procession of expression went through his face as his fate dawned on him. From fear, terror, to absolute despair, then resoluteness, the man faced the end, from a moment of distraction.

“Captain! I’m sorry.”

He said those words simply, without strength or weakness, perhaps a tinge of regret.

“Don’t be, I hope you know what must be done.”

Captain Lewis responded softly, then, to the rest of the squad shouted the next set of orders.

“Retreat! Requesting cover from Leapers!”

A voice boomed back from the Unbreakable.

“Acknowledged.”

During the retreat, Franz, was able to take one of the arms of the Leaper that had doomed his colleague, someone else had taken its head. The one other Leaper to attempt an attack was taken out by covering sniper fire from the Unbreakable.

Behind, the doomed knight dragged along the sea of infected, being bitten and scratched by the countless enemies he and his mount were dragging around. Wading through that sea of the undying, there was only one last thing he could do in service of the empire.

“Everburning Flame!”

With that last shout, he activated to maximum his Blades’ cores, setting them on fire. From the extreme heat, the Infected around him caught fire as well. It spread quickly and was quite effective in cutting down the number of enemies.

Sitting on a small throne inside of the Unbreakable’s Command Car, Lia grimaced, clearly displeased.

“You know, we do have limited time to leave, and there is no better way to scatter the Infected than setting them on fire like this. Look.”

As Chelsea calmly pointed out in the screen, the Infected separated themselves, quickly forming two groups: Those which were on fire and those which weren’t. However, during that movement, the knights cut down many more of them.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like losing anyone.”

“Of course, just don’t lose sight of the big picture. Hey, how much longer before the demolitions charges go off?”

A woman sitting at one of the consoles responded.

“Forty-three minutes.”

Chelsea smiled.

“I think we will have enough time like this.”

So went the battle for some thirty more minutes: Barrages by the Unbreakable’s turrets as well as its soldiers weakened the Infected, followed by a shallow charge from the Knights and a retreat, then another barrage. Through the Infected’s almost unbelievable coordination, the fire in their ranks had mostly died down and the entrance to the station, now completely open, was mostly ash and charred remains. Lia nodded.

“This seems good enough. Colonel, order the departure. We will accelerate through the ash, the knights will escort the Unbreakable until we are a kilometer out of the station, then they will come aboard, at which time, I want full travel speed, understood?”

The colonel saluted.

“The princess’ will be done! Turn on the speakers.”

The orders were broadcast throughout the station.

“Ready! I Will command the left side, odd groups, to me! Baine, you have command of the right side until we board the Unbreakable, even groups, to Baine. Be quick about it! The enemy will… give us the time, I suppose?”

Any attacks by the Infected suddenly stopped, then parted, as if they were startled by the Unbreakable suddenly starting to move, or waiting to ambush its sides. The other option was too terrifying to contemplate. Was there actually some sort of rational and intelligent being behind those ravenous things? Somehow, Franz just could not see it. The Unbreakable was starting to pick up speed and now the Infected resumed their attacks, on the Knights. The moaning, for one. Why would they produce such a sound if it gave away their position if it wasn’t instinctively driven? He pierced and pushed aside an Infected that tried to grab on to the Unbreakable’s side. The gate was getting closer now; and there was still the pile of ash and remains. Nervousness took over Franz. The Unbreakable had been designed so that such obstacles could easily be rammed through, but there was the matter of the ash dust.

“Prepare yourselves! We are about to lose a lot of visibility!”

Cut one down, then another. Nearly there. The speed was getting to be considerable. He covered his nervousness with something like a trance. Parry, cut push, dodge, don’t think, don’t worry, protect and don’t die, cut, push, breathe deeply. It was there.

“Breaking through!”

A loud crash followed as the Unbreakable easily pushed aside everything in its path. As punishment, the ash formed a sinister cloud that was pulled by the train.

“Fifteen seconds! We are almost clear!”

With the considerable speed they were at, there was almost no danger anymore. They were clear of the ash cloud, as long as the knights defended properly and didn’t lose their balance, they would simply trample any Infected that got on their way. Franz just crushed the head of one.

“All aboard!”

With that last order from the Captain, Franz breathed a sigh of relief. Starting with Captain Lewis, they jumped one at a time on board of the Unbreakable. Soon, the first battle would be over, they would be clear of any Infected and some modicum of commemoration could be had. He regarded the passing scenery distractedly.

It was little more than a blur in his vision.

“What?”

It was all he could manage before hearing an ear-splitting scream. It wasn’t a sound produced by an Infected, but nevertheless chilled the spine of every single one of the Knights present. Before going through with the surgery necessary to connect with either Blades or Mounts, prospective Knights had the opportunity to learn about what that truly meant. Superficial control of mechanical limbs with the mind was a technology existent even before the Outbreak and Fall of civilization. Yet it was rarely applied, as it didn’t result in very precise controls. For that, the mechanical limb needed to truly become a limb. The end result of refining such a technology was the Knights, warriors who truly became one with their weapons. There was however, a price to pay. Losing a limb is quite painful. In order to lose many limbs without the shock of intense pain, a great amount of anesthetics are necessary, something which cannot be administered instantly.

A Knight was forcibly dismounted and his scream of agony cut deep into the morale of the other Knights. Even Captain Lewis started to show some sweat.

“Damn, was that a fucking Leaper? It’s on the Command Car’s roof. Fuck.”

“No, Captain, it’s a fucking girl!”

“Shit, prepare to dismount! Trust in the Princess’ Shadow.”

There was no other choice, even though the anesthetics applied in order for a Knight to dismount would leave all of them unable to fight for quite a while, mounted combat on a train was quite dangerous due to the possibility of derailing.

“Damn it, keep Lia safe, Chelsea.”

Franz muttered.

A low thud was heard inside the Command Car.

“What happened?”

Chelsea asked sharply.

“A Knight was dismounted, likely dead by now, a single Infected has landed on top of this car.”

Chelsea clicked her tongue.

“Annoying. I will take care of it. Inform the troops that they are not to engage it. I’d rather not get hit by friendly fire. Open hatch A.”

She looked at Lia, who looked back at her calmly and merely nodded.

Two deaths already, and we’ve barely started. Lia won’t show it, but I know that a perfectionist like her should be quite disturbed by now. I’d better destroy that thing quickly to salvage this start.

“Opening the hatch, good luck, Lady Shadow.”

“I don’t need luck, I have all the skill and power I need.”

She then jumped out to the roof of the Unbreakable and was overcome with surprise, which almost cost her life.

In those first few moments, she felt like she could have written a book on the absurdity of the situation. Was it the fact that the supposed Infected that was capable of dismounting a Knight mid-air was a teenage girl? Perhaps that was it. While the infection could claim anyone, the fact that younger people had very few, if any, modifications meant those bodies didn’t survive the Infected “lifestyle” for long. However, that wasn’t the worst part. She was wearing clothes. Not that the Infected didn’t wear clothes, it’s that whatever clothes they did wear was whatever they had when attacked. Being overwhelmed by Infected already turned even the sturdiest of clothes into tatters, a state of affairs that could only be worsened by being worn by a walking, possibly metamorphosing corpse. This wasn’t the case for the girl in front of Chelsea. She wore beautiful clothes with long sleeves. Chelsea recognized the style from images Lia had shown quite some time ago. It is said that among the wives of the first emperor was a princess of a very far away, eastern kingdom, who wore clothes not quite unlike these. Maybe just that would not have been enough to cause a lapse in Chelsea’s attention, but there was only last thing that befuddled her: She was using her claws to scratch through the Unbreakable’s plating, and was making progress. Those claws then almost claimed Chelsea’s life by cutting her neck.

A witty remark passed through Chelsea’s mind, but it never left her lips. She felt a weight like never before. It wasn’t just the weight of those blows that threatened her life should she fail in her defense even if for a moment or those slashes that had to be perfectly parried should she wish to maintain her limbs intact. She finally realized what was going on, and the weight of being Lia’s Shadow. The words of one of her instructors passed by: “None of this training will truly prepare you for the blows of someone truly intending to kill you.” Somehow, she felt that was stupid. Even if they hadn’t been numerous, Chelsea did stop a few attempts at Lia’s life. She was sure that those assassins had seriously tried to kill her to get to Lia. She also had a few opportunities to fight the Infected up close before and did not feel that weight before. What was it?

Oh, I see it now. The thought felt distant as she put her all into defending herself from the little girl’s attacks. A dodge was followed by the need to parry. A step back and then another. She thought she saw an opening, but once her attack was blocked she felt there had never been anything there. She is, so good. That was something she had never thought about any of her opponents. That was the weight. Never before did she ever think anyone was comparable, let alone stronger than her. But this girl was. Did her other opponents feel the same? Did they also feel that weight? The feeling of thinking you might not be alive the next moment.

A single bang almost broke her concentration. The horrifyingly powerful girl had her stance momentarily broken and instead of launching another attack, showed a rare moment of true vulnerability. Without a moment’s delay, Chelsea advanced to her side and with two powerful punches threw her off the unbreakable. Immediately, the weight was gone, but still Chelsea trembled. Was she afraid? No, it was something else, she was overwhelmed with awe.

Once she was back inside the Command Car, even though the danger was gone, everyone seemed so tense that she had to do something about it.

“Damn fools, even if it was against my order, for Lia to be the only one with the guts to try and snipe that… thing. I am disappointed.”

The colonel saluted her.

“With all due respect, Lady shadow, there were quite a few soldiers that tried helping you, the Princess was just the only successful one. Perhaps you were too concentrated in the fight to realize it.”

This shocked her. Never before was there a situation in which she missed something like that, she was proud of it. For the first time, she missed something that she felt she shouldn’t have.

“I see.”

So ended the first battle in Lia’s journey to the Throne. Two knights lost their lives, by no means a shameful result when talking about an encounter with such a big horde of Infected. More than that, the mysterious girl that gave such trouble to the powerful Shadow was lodged inside most of the soldier’s minds. Whether they wondered about her appearance, clothes, power or even whether she was actually an Infected, they all tried to think about what exactly her existence meant.