16

The burned man points away, and from his blackish finger scabs fall off. With a deep voice the mummy sentences:

Where the earth is wounded and festering, across the valley that is the grave of men and machines, there remains the dome of thunder where the slavers rest their chains.

Anxious to repair his armor and be whole, Chester resumes his journey, and Nadjela follows him with the little pig in her arms. The princess continues not to trust the burned man, but relaxes her to get away from him. According to the distances described by the scientist, if they go at a leisurely pace they would reach the battlefield the next morning.

New night.

Nadjela prepares the campfire while Chester goes out to hunt. They have only been together a few days and she already feels like a wife in love. For it is indeed love, her heart is heavy at the sight of him, and a warmth grows in her belly when they touch.

"My father would never approve" she says to the little pig and to herself, as she throws a branch from a bush to feed the fire. "We're from different worlds.... What do you think?"

The little pig snuggles into Nadjela's lap. The princess interprets the gesture as an honest attempt to calm her anxieties, although it is more likely that the little animal is just cold. Nadjela's gaze focuses on the dancing flames.... She meditates. She is sure that if she were a normal girl she would make a deal with her feelings, she would cling to that man, she would even run away with him.

"But I'm not just any girl. I am the princess of La Cuna. I keep a duty to my people"

"Why are you crying?" Chester asks as he returns, dragging a vulture from a leg thrown over his shoulder. Nadjela excuses herself, assuring him that she is homesick, and wants to go home soon.

"Excuse me, Chester. I need some space to think... And remember"

Chester nods and sits down to pluck the bird.

For the rest of the night they keep their distance and silence. Chester did not seem to suspect the young woman's true feelings. With him hints were ineffective, it would be better to go head on with a dagger.

Two hours after dawn, they reach the edge of a cliff from where they observe the valley promised by the scientist. Nadjela holds her breath and grabs the Lancaster's hand. He lifts the visor and lets out a weary sigh. Nadjela can imagine what happened, the little pig with the instinct can feel the burden of death, but Chester is the only one of the group who carries the tattooed war. The craters in the earth are as big as the craters in his soul.

They find a descent between the ravines.

Three types of armor are crammed into the war cemetery: Heavy (the largest, most resistant, and destructive); Medium (more compact and agile, being the North Star of the bulkiest equipment in this category); and Light, armor that sometimes turned a sixty meter soldier into a two or three meter beast. Pieces of technology that push you to feel like a choleric and annihilating demigod. But beyond the sensation of power that imbues you to go like an arrow through a swarm of fire and noise, and turn the hills into pebbles, or ascend and tear the clouds, the remains of scattered armor are clear testimonies that even demigods can die.

Omnipotence reaches its peak when someone more skilled, or more determined, or luckier than you, manages to slip an explosive between your joints, or pulls you out of armor, or lures you to where one of the enemy battleships or destroyers is aiming its guns. Then, just as easily as the lowest strain of infantry (those protected only with helmets, vests, rifles, and a strap of explosive that made them more valuable as walking grenades) you went on to swell the numbers of those sacrificed in the arduous journey. Feed the leviathan. Grease the great steamroller. Enter Valhalla. Sign the Mortuary. Euphemisms for biting dust in the Divine War exist by the thousands.

Armored or unarmored, the skull revealed when the skin rots has the same sneer on all, whether bone or metal, human or automata. There are even cases where handling armor carries worse fates. Chester has known brothers in arms cook alive inside their machines, or end up with broken bones and lungs coming out of their mouths from having their cabins dented inward. He himself knows the scythe reaper all too well. He is a warrior, he accepts that he will die fighting. Violent lives have violent endings, but what about violent worlds, do they also end badly?

Chester believes that, if someone doesn't put an end to the war, they're all screwed. Although it is also said that when someone wins and the war is resolved, mankind will reach a period of harmony and prosperity never seen before, all in a framework the old timers call "Peace". Peace? What is that?

"Chester, your hand is shaking. What's wrong?"

"S-Sorry. This atmosphere warms my brain" He lets go of Nadjela and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his hand. "I'll go ahead and canvass the area. You trust the lion"" The laughter that accompanies the sentence comes out hollow.

Nadjela follows Chester with her eyes. She too suffers and shudders, specifically at the ghosts squashed between the twisted metal like sandwiches of anguish. When the wind blows, she can't tell if it's the hard material or the ghosts that weep.

The earth Nadjela treads on is red with the blood that once flooded the valley. The Lancaster advised her to stay away from the trenches, those mile-long crevices from where black trails of evil rise, which after a close look Nadjela recognizes as clouds of flies, grown in the thousands of corpses melted into the walls of the fissures, and further down the ossuary are the fossils of fish and reptiles before men, and still deeper an incandescent line open wound of the planet.

(How is it possible that in a single field so much end can be concentrated... Is this what they call war...?)

Skeletons of giants, overturned cyclopean caterpillars, and burst iron whales as wide as mountains, form the walls of the frightful labyrinth. The tattered and scorched coats of arms of the Principality of Elon, and of the Earth Nations Alliance, still stand from the various debris of the massacre, as if to make clear who was responsible.

(Perhaps this is what Father is anxious to protect us from? He worries that by accepting the foreign, we will end up dragged into barbarism)

She holds such thoughts and looks at Chester painfully, imagining him riding a metal king, destroying others like him left and right.

(Soon, on the day when it is my turn to part our ways, I will weep. But I will also understand that it will be for the best)

They penetrate into the valley. The piglet suffers a start that leaves her staring into a tunnel formed by the open chest of heavy armor. Seconds later, it lets out a warning squeal.

Chester turns his face just as a blurry shadow is thrown over him from the tunnel. Ten ten-edged fingers reach for his flesh. Chester draws in a second, and experience leads him to place the sword horizontally close to his face, one hand on the hilt and the other giving support on the dull part of the metal.

The enemy's coated palms are restrained by the sword, leaving the tip of the claws just a couple of centimeters from the Lancasterian's throat.

"Nadjela, back off!" he shouts.

Nadjela carries the piglet and runs to hide among the corpses of humans and machines. Chester has no chance to see where the girl goes, the enemy with whom he struggles requires every drop of attention.

The opponent, in his light armor, steps back with one step, then forward with another, and the claws hiss a second time over the nobleman. Chester deflects the oncoming palm from the right with a slash, sparks fly, and the katana vibrates. He repeats the slash, this time deflecting the left palm, again sparks, and a shudder for the weapon.

The predator's hands give no respite, they have Chester backing up a step for each new attack that the young lion manages to block with difficulty. No miss is allowed within that lethal dance, the hunter always attacks to wound to death. Chester avoids blinking, even though sparks fly into his eyes. He forces his grip as best he can on the katana, even as the vibration of the katana caused millimeter by millimeter to slip from his hands.

Only three fingers of hilt remain between palms. The next swipe of his opponent would send the weapon into the air. In that situation, running to retrieve it would surely mean being pierced in the back. What to do? How to survive...?

Chester drops the blade. Before the sword hits the ground and he lies down, the predator's claws had already been halfway on him, one aimed at his neck and the other aimed at his guts. With his right Chester catches the first hand from the wrist, and with his left he catches the second. The bones of the nobleman's arms creak from the terrible pressure exerted by his enemy's armor. Chester senses that underneath that armor is a very small person. Now more than ever he refuses to lose, even less against a skinny man who was not even up to his forehead.

"Who the hell are you?!"

"I am the death" answers the hunter, his voice aggravated by his helmet. The same helmet that he hurled like a hammer. The forehead of smooth metal rammed against Chester's forehead. Something crackles, and Chester's head is pushed back, his blue mane shaking, but the grip of his hands never falters or gives way under the forces of the other. Chester straightens his head with the flesh of his forehead red and the inside of his skin throbbing. He flashes a monster grin.

"And I'm a goddamn hardhead!" Those words are followed by a foot. The boot slams into the hunter's belly, who cringes and a gasp escapes from his helmet. Chester follows up with another kick, and a third with which he further strains the ligaments in the hunter's arms. The grinding of the armor's joints is heard.

Chester retracts his knee for a fourth kick, but that turns out to be a game where two can play. The metal leg comes up at a speed that makes it a blurry trail, and crushes the swordsman's crotch.

Bloody streaks permeate Chester's corneas, and his pupils constrict. His hands lose all their strength, and with involuntary gentleness he releases his opponent. Chester recoils with his mouth ajar, his throat mute, and affected by waves of pain that prevent him from thinking. After his arms, his legs are the limbs that lose steam, and his knees are planted in the red dust. His chest is the next thing to end up on the ground, on the same place where the sword was left. Chester barely keeps his senses to bring his hands under and between his legs to count his testicles. There are still two, he is relieved. But the relief vanishes when a new spike of pain jumps his tears.

"Have you no honor, b-bastard?" he asks with one eye closed and the other open, spying the hunter standing in front of him, blocking out the sun.

The mercenary's visor glows phosphorescent green. The light hides his eyes beyond the glass and takes away any trace of humanity.

"Honor is as useful as nipples on armor. In battle it only matters who lives and who dies, and I always live" He raises a claw above his head, fingers pointing down at Chester. "As soon as I'm done with you, I'll go and kill that little girl you're carrying. But who knows? Maybe I'll take a couple of days to have some fun with her, until I'm bored"

Chester shuts him up with a thrust in the helmet, right in the respirator, and the hunter falls backwards. But instead of ending up on his back on the ground, he throws his arms out, plants his palms in the dust getting support, balances his body leaving his feet pointing to the sky, lets gravity act and his feet return to the ground. The mercenary straightens up, concluding the perfect somersault. As he refocuses his scopes on the Lancaster, he discovers it climbing the side of a warship, with two feet and one hand, while the other is clutched in his groin.

"I'll be damned!" Chester shouts as if that helps him face the pain melting his balls.... And true, it does help him.

The Lancasterian senses the murderous attack that leaps at him. With the polished instinct of one who survived almost a hundred battles, he releases his groin to grab hold of the ship's carcass, and the other hand, the one he uses for climbing and which also holds the sword, he pulls it back and jerks it, hitting the mercenary's hull a second time. The violent contact of the two metals clangs, drawing new sparks. The hunter returns down and lands in a deep squat. Chester continues climbing.

...

The hunter looks up where he sees the blue-furred varmint fleeing. With a leap amplified by technology, he overcomes the starboard side of the ruined ship, and reaches the deck that stretches out like a hollowed out green and brown moor. Mid-air, the lenses inside the hull guide the hunter's eyes with arrows and glowing lines, placing them in seconds on Chester, whom he sees crawling like a worm inside one of the ship's severed cannons. Is he hiding? That really disappoints the mercenary. He was beginning to think Chester would be one of those honorable idiots, but it looks like he was wrong. Neither is a detail that makes a difference, whether he was honorable or pathetic, he still plans to kill him. He lands, and with his arms thrown back, runs to the giant tube.

"System, activate the depleted uranium claws"

The claws ignite a phosphorescent green, both capable of cutting through anything and rotting it. Another jump, feet first, and the cannon is guided to the circular muzzle. A glance inside, and the sensors locate Chester 15 meters below, waiting in the sealed chamber. The hunter smiles after imagining the nobleman hitting the metal wall, desperate and with no way out. He purses his lips, and slips into the metal tube, his uranium claws furrowing the contour and scraping sparks that precede the light from outside, filtered through the newly created slits.

Two meters, five meters, eight meters, ten meters. He penetrates the darkness while letting the light pass through, and among the blackness of the gun's background, he expects to find the face of a frightened man. But instead he finds a happy madman...

The tip of the blade flashes and plunges into the hunter's chest. It pierces the plates, the elastic and tight-fitting suit underneath, cuts flesh and touches bone. The panicked mercenary grabs the sword from the middle, imprisoning it between bright green paws.

The predator curses in german.

...

Chester clenches his teeth until they gnash, and his buttocks until they ache. He pushes with all his legs can give, runs with the katana outstretched and the mercenary pinned to the end. The Lancaster's lunge takes them down the length of the canyon once more, this time upstream, crossing the beams of light that opened the claws. Fifteen meters diagonally later, they escape through the mouth of the colossal weapon, shot with the force of the blue lion's lunge.

They fall...

Before the mercenary's eyes unfold warnings of a critical hit received, flickering signs that the armor's defenses were breached. Practically the system screams at him to do something, but the Lancaster gives him no room to react.

Chester disengages the sword from his enemy's body, grabs the hilt with both hands, raises the blade above his head, and delivers a firm slash against his opponent's helmet. A thin line grows towards the poles of the helmet, and it opens in half like a melon.

A red tide is released, crowning a pale face with freckled cheeks, a profiled nose, pink lips, and blue eyes like those of a nymph or fairy, a bewildered look between which descends a crimson thread born from the deep cut on the forehead.

The surprise of seeing a woman's face stops Chester. The huntress frowns, causing the festering wound to bathe her expression with a mask of blood, her gaze taking on the fury and menace of a servant of Satan. The nobleman, driven by a sense of preservation, stabs the redhead's left temple with the flat side of the sword.

The clash of the metal against her skull stuns her, but it is not enough to knock her out. What does send her to the dream world is the rock that is embedded in the back of her head when she hits the ground. So much so that she doesn't even feel it when Chester collapses on top of her.