Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
Sloan
“To the gates! To the gates!”
The shouting started from a dozen different throats, then multiplied as the warning was picked up from the rest of the guards inside the Azra walls.
“Wait just a moment longer.” Edison fitted a fabric breastplate over Sloan’s chest. He brushed against her body, slightly looking at her with fear in his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t meant to touch your— I mean, I’m not trying to be inappropriate?—”
“You’re fine.” Sloan looked over to the three other members in her vampire squad who strapped the heavier armor over the skin-tight compression suits Edison had already made for them. “We need to get going soon. Hurry.”
Sloan looked down at her suit, admiring the body armor Edison had come up with.
The black scales they wore as a first layer allowed them to move any way they wanted to, while still offering protection.
Over this, Edison had fitted a new type of cloth armor he had weaved into breastplates, shoulder pads, shin and knee guards and gauntlets.
Their uniforms were still black, but now a blood-red bat stood front and center in the middle of their breastplates.
“Don’t forget your helmets.” Edison looked around the room, searching for his assistant. “Elwood? Elwood, where are you?”
There was a loud crash from somewhere deep in the room, and a moment later, Elwood came from around a corner, carrying three black helmets with pointed bat ears on the top. He wore the fourth one on his head, a huge smile plastered across his lips as he stumbled forward.
He chattered away in his native gnome tongue, looking at Edison with a silly smile.
“No, you don’t look like a superhero. That would be ridiculous. What kind of a hero goes around dressing like a bat?” Edison shook his head, motioning from Elwood to the four members of the vampire unit who stood ready. “Give them their helmets. They have to be going.”
Elwood obeyed, going around doling out the helmets.
“As for weapons, you have your mage sword.” Edison looked over to Sloan.
He drummed the finger on his right hand over the top of his chin as he took in the three other vampire warriors.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to fashion weapons for the three of you, but perhaps a more traditional approach will do? ”
Edison walked over to the side of his laboratory where he opened up a huge wardrobe, displaying a variety of weapons from maces to sabers and crossbows.
“Harrison would have chosen this one.” Doyle walked over and lifted the largest mace off the wall. It was more of a metal club than anything else. “This is for him.”
Pia picked up a pair of knives and placed them in a holder that rested on her lower back. She lifted the crossbow and a quiver full of bolts, as well.
Babs was next. She immediately went to a silver shield and an axe that sported a menacing half-moon blade on one end and a hammer point on the other.
Bells were clanging in the distance as the alarms went off all around the city. Shouts were being drowned out by the noise.
“We need to go—now,” Sloan ordered before she looked over to Edison and Elwood. “Thank you both for all the work you’ve put into our armor.”
Elwood beamed, chirping away in a high-speed tongue that sounded like a squirrel hyped up on caffeine.
“Let’s move ou?—”
The door to Edison’s laboratory banged open, and Jaxon, the young werewolf, walked into the room. Just recently having learned how to change into his human form, he was a wild card, to say the least.
“I want to go,” he shouted over the clanging of the bells. He looked at Sloan for her answer. “I have a stake in this, just like all of you. I have a family to protect. I have more to lose than any of you.”
He’s young and ready to fight and die. He’s so young. Sloan breathed out through her teeth. So young.
Jaxon was young enough to be in his early twenties, tall with dark hair and brown eyes. His muscular physique was tense and ready.
“You have a family, you said?” Sloan asked.
“A wife, Debbie, and a son named Kadryn. I have a responsibility, now that I have the werewolf DNA inside of me. I can help. I’m going to help. Edison even made me armor to wear in my werewolf form.”
“Wow, wow, wow.” Edison ducked around Sloan’s vicious glare. “You have to get the okay from Sloan first. Don’t put me in the middle of this.”
Sloan rolled her eyes. “You would get along great with a shifter I know named Kade. Gear up, and meet us at the wall.”
“Thank you!” A huge grin spread over Jaxon’s lips. “You won’t regret this!”
“I’m already regretting this,” Sloan walked past him and out the door, followed by her squad. “Let’s go. We have a war to fight.”
Sloan turned her walk into a jog. Pia, Babs, and Doyle followed close behind.
The city of Azra was in turmoil. The streets were packed with citizens who were instructed by Croft and the city officials to move into the capitol building and the back side of Azra where the guards’ barracks were normally found.
The sun was just beginning to rest behind the ocean to Sloan’s right. Leah had pushed her army even harder after the attack the night before. She had made better time than anyone expected.
Sloan ran down the hill with her squad and found the bulk of the Azra guards at the front gate. Cherub was there, barking out orders to the men and women under her command.
“We’re ready for this. Our city is ready for this. Our bodies are ready for this. Do your jobs and we will not be broken!”
A massive roar of approval erupted from the throats of the Azra guards around them. Shifters, humans, gargoyles, and even the few gnome guards, all shouted in unison.
“You all know your jobs,” Cherub continued. “Now do your job!”
At once, the courtyard was a maelstrom of churning boots and running bodies. The Azra guards with their silver under-armor and the white-and-gold tunics that swirled around their bodies ran to obey their commander.
“Croft and Theo?” Sloan went up to Cherub as she finished instructing a small group of gargoyles. “What’s the latest report?”
“Theo’s still too injured to fight. He’s taken a unit of shifters to guard the rear door to Azra.
It’s small and easily defended by a handful of warriors.
Croft is on the wall.” Cherub threw a thumb behind her to a wall that had been raised in preparation for the invasion.
“Last report has Leah and her army only a few miles out. You should be able to see them now.”
Sloan nodded. She extended her right arm forward to shake Cherub’s. The gargoyle caught her forearm in her hand, leaving Sloan to do the same.
“Make them pay,” Cherub growled. “If I don’t see you in this world again, I’ll see you in the next.”
“We’ll make them pay,” Sloan agreed, giving the gargoyle one last squeeze from her hand. “We’ll make them regret the day they arrived at Azra’s gates.”
The sounds of the clanging alarm had died down now. Shouts and the movement of so many soldiers at once was the white background noise that now existed. From nowhere, a rumbling filled the air, like the heavy footfalls of a machine’s heartbeat.
The mage engine had arrived at Azra.