Golden Sword

Chapter 10

Even wearing knee high black leather boots, the child of the forest could still dart through her green mansions like a ghost. Long hair as black and satin as her uniform flowed behind her. She held to the shadows and any fleeting cover that became available. Her ears and eyes searched, the HUD was up, she was alert and ready for anything. The enemy could not be much further ahead, she had to be careful.......more so for her mate than herself. Indeed, she would have willingly taken a greater degree of risk, if not for him. This was all automatic, however, the stealth, the attention to potential danger, movement, smells, sounds.

Keika's conscious mind was thinking of Eric and this newly discovered ability of hers. It still blew her mind. She already had one weapon that had cost the life of a member of Dr. Silva's research team when she was younger, someone who also been a friend......when she finally learned how to use it. They didn't realize its power and she had killed him. It had been totally by accident and was not due to her failing, but she had cried and mourned for a very long time.....it still hurt to think about. So now she had two weapons too dangerous to use. Hopefully, this was the last. What else could the serums designers pack into a human body? She felt like she was more of a biological machine than a person. How much of her was her?

Expecting to encounter the enemy first somewhere along the road, she ran in the forest parallel to it, far enough away that it was unlikely she could be detected by anything, even another enhanced human. Unless, that was, if their enhancements were as exceptional as hers, which she doubted. Alexander was sure that she had the edge on their enemy's augmentations in speed and agility. There were no reports of anything approaching AP. That was probably true in all of the senses and abilities. Of course, there was no guarantee of that and she was taking some degree of risk, but she felt it was minimal.

She slowed when sounds came to her from up ahead and to her right, about where the road was. All of her attention focused now upon the job and the faint sounds of conversation she was picking up. In her hand the golden katana appeared as she swiftly closed on the source of the sounds. Dropping her speed now to a smooth crouching glide she slid into a place where her infrared vision was able to image the enemy troops through the foliage. Her HUD blinked up fourteen hostiles in the road, apparently a road block, which was to be expected. Behind them, on the other side of the road, she picked up a much larger heat signature, but it was amorphous, indistinct......a sure sign of many bodies.....a larger unit backing up the road block, probably an encampment for a regiment, or larger, formation.

Still now, and deep in shadows, she carefully watched the enemy that she could make out clearly. One of them imaged somewhat different than the rest, slightly warmer in temperature than the others. It could only be one of the enhanced soldiers, probably one of their so called Knights. That was good news; she was able to distinguish them from the regular troops with her infrared. His image moved about normally. He had not detected her, although she had perceived them well before she came near them. Again, that was good news; her senses were more acute than theirs. Already she was gathering important data. Focusing her hearing on the targets, she listened in to their conversation.

At first it seemed that she was wasting her time. They were only talking about home, and getting this invasion over with as quickly as possible and back to their loved ones. She was about to leave and move on behind this group to learn more about the main enemy army, but then one of the Warriors asked the Knight about the next attempt to take the castle.

"This time it's going to be different." said the Knight. "The first assaults were made using only you Warriors......it was unfortunate that those stupid bastards in the castle managed to set two of our siege towers on fire during the last attack. But now the towers have been rebuilt and the final attack goes in tomorrow morning. This time the Master's Knights will lead the attack, and that will be the difference. The Bishop does not want to lose too many of his Knights in attacks on strong points like this, but we must eliminate the defenders at Crown Point so it can become the base of our operations here."