The pair of skiffs slowed as they approached the bombed-out cluster of buildings. Large shell holes were scattered all around and many of the sandstone buildings were missing chunks of their walls or roofs. After looking over the whole place for a few moments, Tri stepped to the front of her skiff, “Alright! All of you gather ‘round! You too, big guy!” she said, gesturing for her twenty Talonecs and one Necromech to come forward, “You’ve all heard the news. We’re taking the fight to those Clockworks!” There was a sad series of clicks from Pandoran’s skiff, “Not you!” she shouted to the other undead they were bringing along, “The first thing to do is to clear out this passageway to let our allies’ skiffs through. We don’t know if there are a hundred enemies over there, or a thousand, but we’ve got our orders. I want three Talonecs with the mech at all times. The rest of you will follow me and search for any enemies. If we find something we can’t handle, we flush them out and help the mech take care of it! Now, with me!” she shouted, slinking into the shadows. All of her subordinates followed and, apart from three who crept into the overlapping plates of the mech, followed her as she made a dash to the outpost.
Pandoran finished a similar speech a moment later and followed, though he left half of his Talonecs with the assorted undead their mistress gave them command of. Their groups sped to the outpost and prepared for a fight, but when they arrived, the area was quiet. There were no legions of mechanical soldiers to slay, no hidden defenses to disable, nor even any hindrances for them to clear. There was nothing but rubble and ash.
After searching the entire area, the two squadrons met in the center of the outpost, “Alright, I’m creeped out,” Tri said, “I mean, why aren’t there any enemies to fight!? Did they all just disappear from the face of the planet!?”
“Calm down, Tri,” Pandoran said, “Don’t get too upset. If they aren’t here, then they might have sealed off the tunnel and cut us off. In that case… we’re going to have to work pretty hard here.”
“Great… Just what the doctor ordered… We can’t have any good fights, but they just left us with a mess to clean up. Alright, let’s go back to the skiffs and head out,” she said, turning around and trudging back to her skiff. She could feel the disappointment from her squad and she felt the same way; they just might have to waste time unblocking a tunnel instead of engaging the enemy in battle. It was an awful thought.
Once all of the undead were situated, they took off, weaving through the outpost and into the large tunnel in the mountain. As they entered, Tri noticed that the ground was made of sand, which made sense for a skiff-based tunnel. No captain wanted to scrape the bottom of their ship on rocky ground.
The skiffs went slow, so they had plenty of time to react to a cave in, but they were making good progress. A bit later, Tri leaned over the front of her skiff and held up a hand, “I think I see something! Stop the skiffs!” she shouted. Luckily, the skiffs slowed to a stop before whatever Tri saw buried in the sand was flattened, so she leapt from the prow of her skiff and landed in the sand. Walking over to the buried thing, she realized that it was colored similarly to her armor.
As she dug it out, Pandoran walked up beside her and knelt with her, “What’d you find?” he asked, looking at the odd thing she was pawing at. After a moment, she pulled it from the sand, “Oh… That’s unexpected,” Pandoran muttered. Tri turned it around in her hand and realized that it was a Clockwork. It looked like a bat, if someone had found a bat from hell itself and turned it into a machine. It was also torn. Badly. Tri had seen chefs dice meat in the Fortress at one point, and it looked like the Clockwork got on one of those chef’s bad sides.
Tri skimmed over the details, then turned to Pandoran, “We’re not the only ones who came through here. I didn’t hear anything from the mistress about them fighting Clockworks in the tunnels. Did you?” she asked.
“I didn’t. Though…” he trailed off, looking towards the two Talonec prototypes, “No… they can’t talk. The prototypes and raised Clockworks were around back when the mistress was chased off.”
Tri shrugged, “Whatever the case, we’re not alone around here.” She jumped back onto her skiff, “Let’s go, we don’t have much time to waste.” Pandoran nodded, jumping back onto his own skiff and ordering both of their captains to get going. They drove forward again, and Tri saw yet another shiny thing in the sand. She told them to slow down that time, and asked her squad’s Necromech to scoop it from the group with his shield. The pair of skiffs parted for a moment to let the Necromech, with a large, translucent purple shovel, scoop up the sand as they passed. Tri quickly picked through the sand and took the Clockwork from it a moment later. After telling her mech to toss the sand out, she walked over to the side of her skiff to meet with Pandoran, “Looks like another one, but this one wasn’t just destroyed. It was ripped in half. Look,” she said, holding it up for Pandoran to see.
He looked at it while Chip, his own little buddy, shied away, “Yeah, that one looks messed up badly. So, safe to say that there was a fair bit of fighting around here, huh?” he asked.
“Definitely. Either that, or they were just torn to shreds by falling rocks. But…” She did not need to finish that. It would have been far too convenient for there to be falling rocks that just so happened to crush the only Clockworks that passed through the one and only path around the Aekan Pass.
“Not happening, yeah,” Pandoran replied, “No more stops. I have a feeling that we’re in for a surprise at the end of this tunnel,” he said. Tri nodded, and turned back to the tunnel before them. They continued on, and Tri noticed more and more discarded Clockwork husks as they went along. After another while, Tri could see moonlight flooding into the tunnel. Pandoran could see it as well, “I see it,” Pandoran said, “Alright, everyone get ready! We could be diving into a hellish fight! Keep your formations from the outpost!” he shouted, “Get ready!”
Talonecs sunk into the shade while the other undead all stood at the front of the skiff, bracing for any attacks to come. A moment later, the moonlight flooded over them, and they were outside. But there were no streams of lead. No explosive shells descending from the heavens. No charging enemies. Nothing. Just a destroyed outpost. Again. And piles upon piles of destroyed Clockwork husks. The skiffs slid to a halt and there was a moment of silence where nothing moved. The Talonecs rose from the shadows and looked around with wary curiosity.
Tri, seeing nothing to fight, growled, “Dammit! Why can’t there be anything around here!? Why were we too late to the fight!? Come on!” she shouted, jumping down to the ground and kicking one of the Clockwork husks into the closest sandstone building. The metal dented and fell to the ground with a thud, but the thud was accompanied by something else. Something heavier. Tri paused her fit of anger to hear the sounds.
They were stepps, soft from light weight but of something long, likely lanky, After a moment, there was a scraping that only undead or other magical creatures could hear, and Tri whipped her head around to look at a lone wall, standing amidst the rubble of a building. A hand, metal glistening in the moonlight, gripped the top of the wall and was joined by another. They pushed down and a head appeared. It was metallic in nature, but there were hints of flesh beneath the metal. The rest of the creature’s body rose over the wall and its nature was laid bare.
Flesh and bone was fused to metal and cogs. The metal covered the flesh like armor or a morbid shell, but it also acted as if it were a second, amorphous creature clinging to the arms and legs of the pale, tall thing. After a moment of staring at it, it leapt down and stared at them. Tri felt something snap into place, and she realized that the creature was like them; it was an undead.
The undead let out a howl that echoed off of the shattered walls of the outpost, vibrating the sand beneath them. A moment later, zombies began to emerge from the crevices of the buildings. Their clothes were torn and singed, their guns and other weapons encrusted with a bit of sand, but they were still ready to fight. They were numerous, numbering at over a hundred, and Tri marveled at them. They had survived under and assault that the mistress thought would be their end. It was interesting. And wonderful. Very, very wonderful. They had yet another hundred soldiers for the war to come.
