Ironshield

  “Ironshield” copyright 2019 Edward Nile.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real places or people are unintentional.

  Cover artwork by John Anthony Di Giovanni.

  A MechWizard Press book.

  www.mechwizardpress.com

  To Michael, for believing in this one.

  And to Star, for lighting my way.

  Prologue

  Edmund Paulson woke up in the driver’s seat of his motorcar to find it drifting toward the edge of the dirt road. Becoming fully alert, he gripped the steering wheel tight and strained to bring his vehicle away from the edge. His tires slid on dirt and bumped over rocky ground.

  "Come on you son of a two-mark whore," the portly man growled, pulling the steering wheel to the left, shock and danger sobering his whiskey-addled mind in short order. Finally, with a squeal of protest and kicking up a spray of dusty gravel, the automobile righted itself.

  In time for Paulson to see the pedestrians he was about to run over.

  He slammed his foot on the brake pedal and was flung upon the wheel by momentum, saving his head a thunk against the windshield by raising an arm at the last moment.

  Ladies in voluminous skirts matching their piled curls fanned themselves with aghast expressions while their gentlemen escorts shook their heads in overt disapproval.

  Paulson waved at them with a muttered curse. Deciding the walk would do him and bipedal civilians some good, Paulson pulled the motorcar to the side of the road and shut off the engine. He sat there for a while, inspecting himself in the rear-view mirror.

  His eyes were bloodshot, the collar of his white shirt ruffled and stained with sweat in this summer heat. Though his head was all but bald, his soft chin sported a new growth of light brown stubble, speckled with gray.

  So much for retirement. He was supposed to be with his wife. But the damned war went on.

  What would you think if you were watching me now, Ellen? He shook his head. No matter. Once this mess is done with, I'll come home and make it up to you. Just like I promised.

  He climbed out of the vehicle, slammed the door shut behind him, and leaned against it, pulling out his flask. Others walked by, coming to the road via an intersecting foot path leading from the small copse of fir trees where the local senator's mansion sat. Ladies sniffed in derision, whether at his disheveled attire, his drinking, or both. Probably both. Men walked amid clouds of pipe and cigar smoke, for all the world strolling at their ease. By their jovial conversations and relaxed gaits, one might never suspect they were on their way to watch a man die.

  A spy, Paulson reminded himself. A traitor. An enemy. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't put any conviction behind the sentiment. To him, the rallying cries of the Civil War were nothing but the babble of confused men, brothers whose misunderstandings were spiraling them further and further away from one another. Misunderstandings with tragic, fatal consequences.

  To Edmund Paulson, he wasn't about to watch a traitor brought to justice. He was on his way to see a young man killed by his country for doing what he felt was right.

  And as secretary to an Arkenian senator, Paulson was here on behalf of that same country to bear witness.

  He took several long pulls from his flask, letting the burn creep down his throat and spread into a pleasant warmth in his stomach. Paulson unclasped another button on his shirt, closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath as the southern sun shone red through his eyelids. Soon, Ellen, he thought. One way or another, the war was entering its death throes. Just wait for me a little longer. With any luck, Yannick Mal would be the last man Paulson would have to watch meet his end.

  Luck, however, hadn't been kind to him so far.

  Paulson ascended the gentle upward slope of the dirt road, green fields of grass to either side swaying in an all-too-occasional breeze. The walk wasn't strenuous, but between the heat and the alcohol in his system, Paulson was out of breath by the time he reached the summit, his armpits drenched.

  A giant, gilded monstrosity glinted across the field, towering over the heads of the gathering crowd even knelt as it was.

  Radiance, senator Salkirk's personal Kaizer Warsuit.

  Paulson shook his head to himself. Even overseeing an execution, the self-righteous prick couldn't help but posture.

  The crowd pressed thick around the wooden gallows despite the ample space available. Paulson shouldered and elbowed his way forward, muttering 'senatorial witness,' and 'representative privilege.' He had to get a front row view and commit the event to memory to relay for his employer later.

  A covered carriage sat beyond the scaffold, its sleek-coated pair of black horses stamping idly. The windows were tinted, barred with iron rods.

  After having a look around at the faces in the crowd, Paulson surmised that Elliot Salkirk must be in the carriage with the prisoner.

  A breeze rustled the leaves of a lone tree nearby, made the grass ripple like water and the skirts and coattails of the audience billow to the side. On the gallows pole, the noose creaked back and forth.

  Hanging. Paulson wanted to spit out the foulness he tasted at the thought. No respect.

  An armed functionary spotted Paulson and knocked on the carriage window.

  The door opened and two figures stepped out, one leading the other. Neither of them was Elliot Salkirk.

  "Where is the senator?" Paulson said to no one in particular. The question was lost amid the sudden cacophony of jeers and hurled insults. A rock struck the blindfolded condemned, causing him to stumble.

  Paulson couldn't believe what he was seeing at first. "For God's sake!" he yelled. "Have some decency!"

  "Traitor! Filth! Spy!" The epithets drowned him out, accompanied by more thrown projectiles and spit. The blinded, limping prisoner was soon coated in the slime of turned vegetables, their deterioration exacerbated in the blistering heat.

  Another stone hit the man's right leg with a hollow thunk and he fell over, slipping from the grasp of his handler.

  "Where the hell is the senator?!" Paulson repeated, cheeks heated, flushed beyond anything whiskey or sunlight could account for. "This is a ceremony of justice, not a damned mob!"

  No one listened to him.

  The man charged with leading Yannick Mal to the gallows was none other than Darian Gaul, Salkirk’s personal stooge, a soldier during the Xang War with a reputation as a remorseless killer. Gaul took Yannick by the arms and yanked him to his feet. One of the prisoner's feet stayed behind. Yannick's wooden leg caught against a stone and, its fixings loosened by the strike it had just taken, slipped free of his pants.

  Yannick nearly fell again, barely catching himself by holding onto Gaul's arm.

  Though much of the crowd took obvious delight in this turn of events, even going so far as to pick up the detached prosthetic and wave it about in mockery, the man straining to drag Yannick forward was less amused. When the prisoner sagged again, Gaul struck him across the mouth.

  “In the name of the Savior, is anyone taking charge here?” Paulson elbowed his way through the crowd, determined to do something about this himself if need be. When he stumbled, legs made unsteady by the whiskey, Paulson became another object of the crowd’s ridicule.

  They all went silent a moment later, however, when Radiance roared to life, spitting plumes of black smoke from twin exhaust pipes jutting from the engine block on its back. The cockpit door dropped with a hydraulic hiss. It was built into the middle of the audacious Warsuit’s chest cavity, an impractical design no doubt favored by the pilot for dramatic flair.

  Paulson watched in numb disbelief as the hatch lowered, and Elliot Salkirk stepped out of the cockpit, wearing a garish white suit threaded with gold scrollwork, gold and gem-encrusted ignition saber at his side. Even th
e belt his saber hung from was made of braided gold and silver.

  With a beaming smile, Senator Salkirk raised his hands to a roar of applause.

  Sycophants, thought Paulson. But at least they’d stopped tormenting the one-legged wretch.

  Paulson glowered in increasing outrage as Salkirk kicked a spool of steel cable off the hatch in an obviously practiced motion. Liveried servants below rushed out from behind Radiance to hook the spool to a motorized winch.

  Still waving to his loyal dogs, Salkirk stepped onto a platform attached to the cable and descended as the winch pulled it, for all the world like a deity floating to earth to greet his flock.

  Paulson took a drink from his flask.

  Meanwhile, on the gallows platform, Gaul put poor Yannick’s head through the noose. When the one-legged man fell forward and started to prematurely choke, Gaul placed a hand on his chest to steady him, albeit with a look that said he’d rather strangle him right then.

  Can’t be more than twenty-five years old, Paulson thought, studying the blindfolded condemned’s chiseled features, framed in a messy mop of brown hair. Maybe younger.

  Salkirk finished his descent and stepped into the waiting crowd, shaking hands and smiling with teeth that were all too white. Paulson had seen a shark caught by a fishing boat once. Elliot Salkirk’s smile reminded him of it.

  The senator didn’t acknowledge Paulson, but he caught a quick flicker in the man’s dark eyes that said he’d seen him. With Salkirk, everything was a power play.

  Paulson took another draw from his flask and watched the senator fraternize with his usual brown-nosers, knowing that decorum and the threat of public censure wouldn’t allow the gregarious senator to ignore him entirely. Sure enough, right as Paulson was letting his mind wander to escape the nauseating spectacle:

  “Secretary Paulson, it’s an honor to have you at my estate.”

  Paulson accepted Salkirk’s crushing handshake, keeping his expression stony. “Senator Mutton sends his regrets that he could not attend,” he said. “The duties of his office are pressing of late.”

  “His office, of course,” Salkirk replied with a wink. “I suppose you’re here to serve as witness on his behalf?”

  On the scaffold, Yannick Mal wobbled on his one leg while a bearded man made a show of whittling on his detached prosthetic with a belt knife.

  “I am,” Paulson answered. “Although I must admit, I traveled here expecting a very different affair.”

  “Oh, don’t mind them,” Salkirk waved off the woman spitting at the prisoner, the offenses against his false leg, and the shouted insults which had begun anew once the fawning over Salkirk’s person died down, as though it were all nothing more than children throwing mud pies. “I let my guests have their fun, but make no mistake, the execution will be conducted in a manner befitting the state.”

  “The manner of execution is one thing I question above all. While hanging may be an approved method, I wonder if the rope befits this man in particular.”

  “Arkenia has always hung spies, secretary. I see no reason why this wretch should be different.”

  We hang spies who work against the nation. Can that be said of this man? Paulson didn’t voice the question, for Senator Mutton’s sake. This late into the Civil War, the last thing Samuel Mutton needed was his secretary speaking what would inevitably be called pro-Industrialist sentiments. “Be that as it may,” said Paulson instead. “Most spies didn’t sacrifice a leg fighting for our military. Surely, taking his service into account, he could at least be graced with the honor of a bullet.”

  Salkirk’s smile lessened a fraction. “Tell me, are these your employer’s thoughts, or your own?”

  Paulson shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t know the senator’s opinion on the matter. It is only now that I’m learning the details myself.”

  “I see.” The shark-toothed smile widened again. “Then best we get on with it, so you can learn some more. I’m sure Senator Mutton has other places for you to be once this is taken care of. Please excuse me, secretary.”

  “Of course.” Paulson satisfied himself by watching Salkirk wince at his own parting handshake. The senator recovered quickly and all but leapt up the short steps onto the gallows platform.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen!” he called to renewed applause. Behind him, Yannick Mal was saved from choking once more by an annoyed Gaul.

  “You see here before you the worst manner of traitor. A Southern soldier, one of our very own, caught spying for the treasonous North!”

  “Hang him!” Shouted the crowd. They clambered closer to the gallows, moving as one enraged body.

  Salkirk raised his white-gloved hands. "Easy, fellow patriots. Justice will be served this day. Some," and here Salkirk turned a pointed glance in Paulson's direction. "Would spare this worm the disgrace of the rope, would insist he be shot instead, as a soldier."

  Boos all around.

  Salkirk held out a white-gloved hand, and a man obliged him by passing up Yannick's wooden leg.

  The senator held the prosthetic up, displaying the rough carvings thereon. ‘Traitor.’ ‘Rot in hell.’ ‘Choke slow,’ and many messages far more vulgar were etched and written onto the wood by excited members of the mob.

  "Disgraceful," Salkirk said with a tsk. "Defacing a prop for the disabled.”

  Finally, some sanity. Paulson didn't like Salkirk, but he'd forgive a thousand grievances if the senator made Yannick's end fair.

  "How will a more deserving veteran ever make use of this limb? It's no better than firewood, now." Salkirk tossed the wooden leg to the ground, rubbing his fingers together afterward as if he'd handled something unclean. "No, my friends. Messages like these must be etched on a more deserving canvas."

  Oh, what the hell is he on about now?

  Salkirk drew his saber. The straight blade was every bit as lavish as the rest of the man's attire. Rippling patterns of blue-gray played across the damask steel. Its ostentatiousness was only marred by the jagged key groove running down the blade's center. Paulson was surprised Salkirk hadn't changed the ignition cradle of his Kaizer to fit something more aesthetic. Perhaps the man's vanity only went so far.

  Such restraint didn't apply to what Elliot Salkirk did next.

  "Let the man himself hang as testimony of his crimes." With three expert motions, he cut Yannick Mal's filthy shirt open and drew two crimson lines across his bare chest. The condemned man screamed and thrashed, barely held upright by Gaul and another of Salkirk's flunkies.

  The dripping cuts on Yannick formed a bloody capital 'T.'

  "T for Traitor!" Salkirk shouted.

  For all the noise they made, the mob of two hundred might have been three times as large.

  Paulson remained rooted to the spot even as he was jostled by eager onlookers to either side. He put his hand inside his coat. This time, it wasn't a flask he reached for.

  "Does the spy have any last words?"

  Yannick gasped for air for several seconds as the crowd settled somewhat to listen.

  Finally finding his breath, Yannick Mal spoke. "Tell my mother I—"

  Salkirk kicked the wooden lever, releasing the trapdoor beneath Yannick’s feet. The rope went taut with an audible snap when he dropped.

  Yannick kicked and thrashed, face darkening as he struggled to draw air that wasn’t to be found.

  “The boy’s got a strong neck, folks! We’re in for a fine show!”

  Salkirk’s audience laughed and cheered, all but for a few scattered ladies who turned away from the display, complexions going pale behind their handkerchiefs.

  Paulson didn’t look away. Through the shifting vertigo of alcoholic fugue, he focused on Yannick Mal’s bulging eyes, imagining what he’d want, in the younger man’s shoes.

  Lost in the moment, no one noticed Paulson draw his revolver. No one, that was, except Elliot Salkirk.

  The senator dove to the gallows floor. Paulson squeezed the trigger.

  A single gunshot cut throu
gh the noise of the mob. In Yannick Mal’s chest, a red flower blossomed. The one-legged man jerked once, then went limp.

  People shrank back with confused shouts. Some ran while others ducked and cowered, looking at Paulson in terror, worried no doubt that he’d turn the gun on them next. Instead, Paulson holstered the weapon.

  Hands over his head, Salkirk looked around, clearly realizing his predicament, hunched on the scaffold in front of his adoring fans. The senator stood, dusting off his suit, looking at Paulson with a livid scowl.

  Aware of the rifles of Salkirk’s men trained on him, Paulson hiccoughed loudly. “My apologies,” he said. “I was just making sure the safety was on and the blasted thing popped off on me. How embarrassing.”