Titus, Scion of the First Honor
Titus and the last League of Madhi Brothers stood at the crest of the Crimson Steppe. A sky-full of dropships had begun to disgorge their Massieu infantry down to the green pastures of Callahorn below them. Titus and the Brothers had retreated six times now, ceding several moons in an effort to appease the Massieu without resorting to war. But Callahorn was more than a fertile resource to the Madhi. It was a sacred place, second only, perhaps, to Vespersa. Titus grimaced. He knew the Massieu weren’t even interested in Callahorn resources. They tore up the Darna Meadows below simply to have a staging area to mount an invasion on Grovaws itself.
The Last League of Brothers were the only thing standing in their way.
“We’ll never hold them back.” It was Domitian, Titus’s most seasoned gunner. If Domitian was despairing, Titus knew it was bad.
“But not hopeless,” Titus said.
Domitian checked the phase cycler on his rotary carbine. “Hope is the battle cry of the doomed.”
Behind them, the rest of the forty-seven Brothers stood stoically awaiting an order. Most couldn’t even hold up their arms. They’d been fighting for thirty-six straight days without a meal. Their faces and arms were so much sinew and bone—they looked like skeletons swaddled in dry cloth.
Titus checked the com link in his arm-cannon harness. The High Command of Grovaws had sent a brief note: We’ve no time to evacuate. The rest of the Madhi standing force was fortifying against invasion. But it would be academic if the Massieu landed on the home world. The First Reverend would not endanger the people with a stand and fight order. The Massieu knew as much. All they’d need to do is take the temple grounds and Grovaws would fall.
And those who didn’t comply would be shipped off-world. Or worse.
Titus looked back at the thousands of Massieu trampling the fresh green grasses of Callahorn. “Hope may be the battle cry of the doomed,” he said, “but it will not be the cry of the conquered.”
Domitian turned to Titus and smiled. “One last time. For light and honor.”
Titus clapped his old friend on the back, then walked back toward his forty-seven brothers. “We’ll go hard at them until we’ve nothing more to give, and leave the balance of things to the Origin and His wisdom.”
The Brothers nodded, still tired, but willing to follow Titus to the last. It stirred his heart, and gave him a foolish idea. Calling on the old ways, he summoned the Breath of his own life and focused it into a radiant touch. Passing slowly from one Brother to the next, he placed his calloused hand on their heads and shared what Breath he could.
One by one, every member of the Last League began to breathe deeper, stand straighter, and raise their tired arms. When Titus was done, they looked nothing like the skeletons they’d been, but were full-bodied and thrumming with the desire for battle.
Titus stumbled to his hands and knees, barely able to support his own frame. His hands and arms now ran with creases, as though his skin had aged and withered. He laughed weakly, realizing only now why his father had looked so old so young—the man had never explained or complained about his weathered body.
Then a hand swung down in front of Titus’s face. It was Domitian. “That was honorable but foolish. How do you plan to lead us into desolation now?”
“You can do it.”
Domitian gave a great belly laugh. “I’m a gunner. I strike from the edge.” Then his eyes widened. “There is something … but it’s even more foolish.”
“Out with it,” Titus said.
“It’s not the old way, but I could put several hundred thousand joules right into your heart. You’d only live an hour, but it would be a mighty hour.”
Titus tried to stand, but couldn’t. “You’ve done this before?”
“How do you think I know about hopeless battle cries?” He looked back over the restless Brothers. “Forty years ago now, my first battalion amped an entire league to push back the Rhodians when those mechanized clowns sent an army of walking tanks into the Crona.”
“Any of the amped survive?”
Domitian shrugged. “I’m trying to stay positive here.”
Titus laughed weakly again. “Do it.”
His old friend took Titus under one arm and rolled him onto his back. Then he dislodged his carbine cycler, exposing two phase leads. Without a count-in, he pushed them into Titus’s neck. Hot energy shot through his body, searing along his nerves and bones and spiraling into his heart. It felt like the adrenaline of surface diving from a low-altitude dropship but like a thousand times at once. Titus’s heart began to pound fast and hard, every beat like a quarry hammer splitting column stone. For several moments he saw only bright white.
Then his vision cleared, and he felt himself again. He’d gotten back—temporary though it might be—what he’d given away. It would have to do.
Titus stood, walked to the top of the Crimson Steppe, and waved his Last League of Brothers forward.
But Titus did not take the battle to the Massieu straight on. That was still a fool’s game. Instead, he sent his Brothers in pairs—one gunner, one roller—instructing each roller to hold back the Massieu as their gunner-mate took aim at dropship low-altitude thrusters. They didn’t need to take them all out. Just one in every ten. Once they were destabilized, they’d become a risk.
That was the Massieu’s weakness. Their ostentatious show of force had crowded their dropships so closely together that a dozen disrupted flight paths could endanger the whole fleet. And the Massieu hated losing resources almost as badly as they hated being shown up.
As pairs of the Last League fought at the edges of the Meadow, Titus went into the heart of the expansionist force, Domitian at his side. He fought like a Mahdi possessed, throwing himself into a tight ball, rolling hard at the Massieu and crushing them like saplings. Domitian laid down an impressive array of suppressive fire, keeping Titus from being swallowed up by Massieu sabers, but grazing him more than once.
TItus barely felt it as he fought with reckless abandon … like a doomed warrior.
The exhaust of drop ships blew fumes in powerful downspouts around him as they tried to evade the Last League cannon-fire exploding in their thrust carriages.
Despite Domitian’s cover fire and his own furor, Titus went down more times than he could count, taking Massieu blades hard against his iron-like skin. But he didn’t relent, punching through the ranks of invaders, creating mayhem, providing his Brothers a diversion while they performed their more surgical strikes on the Massieu fleet.
Eventually he could see nothing. He was just crushing anything he could feel in the wash of fumes and dirt and amidst the cries and chaos.
Then everything went black.
“That was pretty heroic stuff today, my friend.”
Titus opened his eyes to a clear sky. He turned his head to see Domitian sitting on the ground beside him.
“Seems my heart didn’t burst.”
“You beat some long odds today, my friend. But then, your heart has always had a different kind of capacity.”
Domitian took out a pouch of juniper berries and began to munch them. “They’re going to award you the title of Scion for this little escapade.”
“None of that matters,” Titus said.
His old friend laughed with some tart-smelling breath. “Not to you, maybe. But it’ll matter to the Last League.” He nudged Titus with his boot. “And it matters to me. I’ll gun with you anytime.”
Titus smiled.
“Besides, have you any idea how many free mugs of bitters I’ll fetch being the guy who amped a Scion of the First Honor? I’ll be a legend.”
The two friends shared a look and broke into laughter.