Caidoz

Chapter 48

~Procyon

"Arsenic, check. Smelling salts, check. " I rummaged through my bag, searching. I sighed, frowning. "Where did I put that pastry?"
   Cancer glanced at me from her seat on a fallen tree log, a smile stretching over her lips. She had long gotten out her cloak after the sun had set, bundled up in its warmth.

   "You eat pastries that you put beside your poisons?" She asked, wrapping her arms around her legs.
   I didn't even bother to look at her, digging frantically in my bag. "Sure I do. My potions are always properly sealed."

   "Even so, if something spills, isn't that kind of a death sentence?"
    "I wouldn't worry about him," Ursa Minor said, his voice making me start. "If he tries to eat something that has poison, I'll smell it." His gaze was rigid upon the opposite shore, his back to us. He had been like that ever since we've made it across, just staring.
   "Dog it all." I withdrew my hands from my satchel, pulling out a burnt tart. Send my complaints to the chef. I sighed before taking a bite, falling into my thoughts. We've been here for a good hour. I say good, but it actually felt more like a monotony. The woods were no more welcoming now then they were from the opposite bank. Mist swirled around us like a starved phantom, the rest of the forest nothing but a dark horizon haunted by its fog.
    It had been too risky to build a fire, had everything gone wrong. Cancer had switched into her Simehian clothing, and I had found and clothed myself in some of the drape-like garments Ursa Minor and Ursa Major wore at the bottom of the backpack. It was definitely better than staying soaked. Ursa Minor didn't have any spare clothing, but he explained to us that he was well adjusted to the temperatures of Haven. Still, it bugged me how much more work I would have if he caught hypothermia.
   "Do you always smile like that when you eat something sweet? And do that narrowing of your eyes?" Cancer asked, raising a brow.
   My eyes widened in realizing that I was smiling. "I don't actually do that every  time I eat something, do I?"
   She grinned.
   Talk about bad habits. I hurriedly finished up my snack, wishing I didn't have enhanced hearing as they caught her giggles perfectly.
   A heavy sound wave slammed into my head, disorienting my vision. I growled, getting to my feet.
   Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Minor oddly stiffen.
   "Cannon fuses are burning." I heard him perfectly, but he must have been inaudible for Cancer, who frowns.
   "Wait, what --"
   "They're about to go off," He says, turning to us. His eyes were sparkling,  jaw firm. "I can smell the fumes."

                                                                                           *

   BOOM! Achird watches as the smoke from the cannonballs spiral into the air. His targeting centers in his pupils zoom in on the damage inflicted, but he clicks his tongue and sighs, waving a hand. "AGAIN." 
   "YES, BRONZE SEVERIAL ACHIRD." The brass-ranked severials stationed at each cannon readied their gunpowder, aiming once more at the cliff. 
   The broad man and the silver-haired boy that had assisted in the Caidozian's escape were compliances. Whether they knew she was a Caidozian or not was something Achird's brain was programmed to process. They would be were captured alongside her and punished justly for housing a wanted fugitive.
   He was quite sure he had injured the man, so he would be weakened, making things go more smoothly. His sensors had not detected the presence of projectiles on the boy: he would have the advantage in combat, should he catch them off guard. Not to mention his heat sensors could detect movement before it even occurred. 
   The only oddity was this cliff.
   His pupils dilated and shrank behind his bronze mask, looking it over as another range of cannonballs slammed into it. Somehow, the fugitives had escaped through solid stone; he had scanned their inventories thoroughly throughout the chase: they did not have intangibility potions. When he had first arrived, he had scanned the entire structure, but the complex surface somehow had reflected back. But he knew their escape had not been one of his hallucinations-- he had sensed heat from their bodies before it disappeared.
   They were somehow on the other side.
   The severials just had to blast their way through thus obstacle. And the structure was already beginning to give way.
   The mission should be a simple fetch and retrieve.
   A zombie-like cheer from the brass-ranked severials caught his attention as the rock cliff finally crumbled with the last blast from their cannons, and some lifted their fists in the air before staring at it confusedly. A remnant of their old instincts, long unprogrammed.
   No matter.
   The billowing smoke steadily subsided, revealing a gaping slit in the cliff's side; trickles of golden light bled through the other side. One would have to proceed sideways through the narrow crack to access the other side individually, but Achird lifted his chin with a click. 
   "FORWARD, YOU PIECES OF RUSTED CLOCKWORK. LEAVE THE CANNONS-- WE HAVE NO USE FOR THEM NOW." 

   Powering on their endless supply of energy, the product of their own harvested brainwaves, the severials marched forward, each one drawing out a sword or firearm in their left and saluting as they passed Achird with their right. He withdrew a bronze firearm from his coat and slid the release, slipping out the cylinder with a soft click!  He loaded six steel bullets into the revolver and snapped it back into his firearm.
   His queen's own magnificence to load his bronze weapon: bullets loaded with a Caidozian's poison. He readied his position before watching his troops move towards the ragged slit in the cliff.

   A flash of movement drew his targeting pupils towards the source. A young man was running away from the top of the cliff.
   Achird's hands snapped into precision. He hit the hammer and pulled the trigger with a sneer hitting his target dead-on in the back. The man didn't even have time to cry out from the bullet's impact, tripping over his footing and falling face-first out of view.
   He snickered coldly as he turned his revolver over in his hands, ejecting his special bullets, using his heat vision in order to let the single bullet drop and to catch and pocket the rest. He began to reload with normal rounds. It seemed as if he might have rid some game in the forest. 
    He clicked his cylinder closed before looking up to the clifftop. His sensors picked up on the bodies of heat a minute too late.
   He dropped to the ground to avoid the arrow as it flew overhead, the heat still present on the nock from being released. Two severials in line fell flat against the ground, arrow shafts embedded in their chests. 
   "Release!" A wave of arrows shot out toward the severials, many of which thudded into their targets and knocked them flat against the ground, electricity and oil leaking from their wounds. 
   "KEEP PRESSING FORWARD AND ATTACK, YOU PIECES OF RUST!" Achird screamed, whipping behind a tree as an arrow embedded itself into the trunk, shaking the leaves. Eyes blazing with fury, he dropped to a crouch, glaring up at the cliff, firing whenever his pupils locked on a moving target. His heat vision never failed him: he always saw his targets, giving him an uncanny accuracy.
   The hit severials of his army were down only momentarily before easing back on their feet, arrows still embedded in their brass chests. 
  "SWITCH TO ELECTRIC!" Achird said, the gears grinding in his scream. He withdrew a second firearm from his coat and snapped around the tree trunk to fire at a tree upon the high cliff. It streaked through the air with a red cloud tail like a comet, exploding with a loud crackle upon impact, sparks flying and illuminating the scene. Men and women near the tree were shrieking and crying out, some of which drop to the ground in agony after getting hit by sparks, the rest scattering slightly before reassuming positioning and firing with a new frenzy. Achird whipped back behind his cover as multiple arrows slammed into the trunk. With narrow and sharp screams, twelve more flare guns went off, with twelve streaks of red dust as his men followed Achird's lead, exploding bright bursts into neighboring trees on the cliff. 
   Each began to burn with an orange puff of smoke, engulfing in flames. Those who did not retreat upon the first tree were caught in the fire. And the screams. From behind his tree, Achird's face ticked and clicked, his lips stretching over his teeth, golden swirls under his eyes squinting. 
   People farther away from the trees, closer to the edge of the cliff were now trapped with the fire behind them. Achird popped his cylinder from his revolver, ejecting the spent remains and reloading as his men began picking off the remainder of the men visible on the cliff, inhaling with a greater grin the musk of fumes. The thud of those falling from their perch upon the cliff and the roar of the flames were all a part of the beautiful gift given to him by his dear queen. He clicked his cylinder back into his revolver and spun it once, softly, as he stepped out from behind the tree. He tilted his head as an arrow came for it, snatching it with his right hand out of the air. He looked back up at the cliff to see a young boy in wild pelts with shaking hands grasping his bow. 
   The boy lay still on the ground before he knew what hit him.