“And, you turn that dial to change frequencies,” Zelaphiel said and took a breath. “Understand?” Lieutenant Benasso nodded as he held the radio pack in his hands. Its canvas had torn in several places, and the hardcase appeared nicked by shrapnel, but as Zelaphiel showed while demonstrating its functions; that damage was superficial. The radio worked perfectly. “You’ll want to …

King Kalen Darigon stood in his bedroom, beneath the western face of the clockwork tower. His thin window offered a vista of Vultheras, its districts and its walls; the Wendergerd Bridge, alight with the glow of burning tanks; and the crescent shore of the Brass Sea, ablaze with fire and obscured by smoke and the storm.  The king had donned …

Fires crackled along the road; it burned in the cradle of a blown-open tank, across overturned transports, and wherever oil had spilled. The wet grass didn’t catch light, but that was no comfort to the casualties moaning in the mud. Zelaphiel heard it as he rolled onto his shoulder: Whimpering groans crowded by the sounds of war and falling rain. …

A woman’s voice crackled through the speaker of an intercom, placed in the ceiling corner of a small control room beneath Vultheras. “Standby for an automated broadcast; from your king, Kalen Darigon,” she said. A flat tone played and the audio clicked. “To all personnel; the shield surrounding Vultheras Island has fallen. The final phase of Protocol Sigma will now …

Atilonian trucks had halted on a dirt road south of Wenderguard. Cid’s black dress shoe sunk in the mud as he stepped down from a cab. Rain pattered him, wet his hair and dampened his suit, before he unfurled his small black umbrella. “What’s happened?” he asked aloud as he walked down the road, past idling transports and the inquisitors …

The Atilonians made their move after Vultheras’ shield coalesced in an orb above the city. They advanced two columns of AF-Mizara onto the Wendergerd Bridge; thirty-two of their finest medium tanks, fit with formidable 3-Inch Finale long guns, rolled onto pitch-black asphalt of mixed pebbles and crushed glass. Each tank had a crew of three: A gunner, a loader, and …

Matteo sat aboard the transport truck, butt on the transport seat, as he struggled to watch the unfolding siege. For minutes on end, batteries across the coast lit in flashes of white, yellow, and orange; cast a haze of smoke and gunpowder that obscured the shore and water. The shield fluctuated—rippled dramatically—with each blast, but showed no sign of collapsing. …

The vibrations continued, rattled equipment, and shook dust and debris from the ceiling. When it seemed they wouldn’t stop, the major produced a con-link from his pocket. He placed it around his ear and approached the line-up of golems; his being the largest among them, hunched without a carriage around its polished steel frame. An attendant mechanic by the golem’s …

A boy in Bastilhas had one of three heroes: The king, Kalen Darigon, that popular culture portrayed as stoic and indomitable, an unyielding defender of the kingdom; the Royal Knights, Kalen’s personal bodyguard, assembled from the most talented and magical Bastilhasians; and, without a doubt, the Mithril Battalion, the kingdom’s elite golem knights. Stories, poems, songs, and plays had been …

In Vultheras, Katrin Wulff waited in a chamber above the war room. The cavalry-commander-turned-general stood in her gray-gold dress uniform with her hands neat behind her back, a slip of paper crushed by her fingers. She remained impassive, her shoulders straight and her chin high. A thin rapier with a delicate, golden hilt was sheathed on her left side. It …