'It's time to plug the cable back,' Claudia said. 'We are being seen even if we don't notice.'

  Robert tilted his head back, squinting against the pale wash of dawn. Above, silhouettes circled lazily in predatory arcs. To the normal eye, they appeared as distant birds, although to Robert's it was something far more unsettling.

  Without either hesitation nor enthusiasm, he obeyed Claudia's instruction. His fingers found the cable's cold connector and pressed it against the socket embedded in his chest with a click that vibrated through his ribs. There was no protest in him. No spark of resistance or curiosity: just the hollow compliance of someone who has lost meaning. Something without will.

  For a fleeting moment, he imagined this was how exhaustion might feel for a real man: He knew he was not, as he could not tire. It was something else entirely. Claudia had not told him. She hid it pretty well. But the shadow of her control over his actions became more evident the further they went.

  The boat shuddered as it plowed over the beach. The hull lurched sideways with a groan as it deepened further in the wet sand. Robert leaped clear just as the bow dipped, his boots kicking up water drops glittering briefly in the pale light. He didn’t bother with ropes or anchors. They wouldn't use it anymore and if Claudia's schemes were right, it would be soon found.

  For days, unseen watchers had tracked their arrival. Bird-like machines spying from high above and distant ships stalking from the horizon’s haze. A game that worked from the Marquisee to the Northislay. But a game that would not work any further. Any attempts now to sail north, would be met with annihilation. Claudia knew it of course. She annoyingly knew everything. Robert used too, but not anymore. She had cut him. She had crippled his thoughts, his intent and sometimes even his actions.

  They had made for Northislay's eastern shore as planned. To seek an engagement enabling her to use words before weapons. A meeting. A surrender. Anything to bring them to a destination they would not reach in any other possible way.

  Robert walked. Not obligated, but neither by intent. He just knew where to put the next step, where to head, without Claudia having to tell. The beach ahead appeared barren at first, but soon signs of live emerged. scattered remnants of wrecked dwellings. Makeshift barracks crouched among trees, woven from tattered rags and splintered, rotten planks. A place of exiles; Those who had slipped through the gaps of Herjard’s gasp.

  Robert tensed, anticipating ambush from any corner. Instead, came only the arrival of gaunt figures creeping forward like ghosts. Wasted limbs beneath ragged cloth; carved hollows beneath their eyes. And in those eyes he saw no threat, but terror so deep it seemed etched into bone.

  Robert crossed the settlement with caution yet commitment. He knew no human could challenge him. Nor well-fed and trained soldiers, much less those who could barely stand in front of him.

  The locals cowered in their burrows, shadows flitting behind tattered curtains rather than face him. They stood silent, begging with their eyes.

  All but one.

  A skeletal figure stepped forward with trembling hands raised in supplication "Mister," the man rasped, voice cracking. "Don’t go deeper into the trees. Iron men in there. Many patrols. A-and past them... the steel monsters. Those are worse."

  Robert paused mid-step. "Noted, thank you for the warning."

  "Mister—" The man swallowed. Hard bony fingers twitched toward Robert’s sleeve but didn’t dare touch. "Do you have water? Food?"

  Robert glanced past him toward the small path towards the beach. His boat's carcass was already being picked at by scavengers. "Not on me." He adjusted his stance, turning away with finality. "But there's provisions in my vessel if you're quick."

  Something flickered in each hollow eye around him. Then, every single one moved with sudden purpose, sprinting down-shore like starving hounds unleashed upon fresh meat.

  All but one.

  The slum emptied, only remaining the man who had spoken to them. His lip trembled before talking again, although this time Robert cut him off.

  "They will come after me." Robert said. "You and the rest should—"

  His words held on his throat. He pushed a breath out to clear the need to speak, but all effort felt vain.

  "What I'm trying to say," Claudia said. "Is that there are others from my research team coming. They will bring more provisions for you, you just need to give them this."

  Robert checked on his bag and took out an envelope. The man grabbed it with hesitation, his eyes flickering as Robert made sure he saw the strange cable protruding from his chest.

  "You must tell them something really important." Claudia said. "Tell them this letter is from Claudia. Will you remember the name?"

  The man nodded and Robert wasted no more time to step deeper into the woods. Dry leaves and fallen twigs cracked under his shoes. Wind howled deep, hiding any other noise under. Animals had returned to a life that seemed impossible in lands bathed in radiation.

  'What is it?' Claudia said.

  'I just wonder when did you lose all your humanity.'

  'Do you know the game of the hash'da?' She said. Robert knew. as he knew where she as going with it, yet she continued to explain to his annoyance. 'You can't take the Castle without loosing at least one of the soldiers. It's impossible. This is a mission to town an Empire down, Robert. If we start pitying the expendables, we will fail.'

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Uphill the forest turned dense, little light of the morning slipping through the trees. Damp earth and pine resin clung to the air, thick enough to taste. Birds chirped, Animals danced, breaking twigs and dry leaves as they passed close. Now and then, the forest noises would halt in an eerie silence: Nature's gift in the form of warnings. Then, Robert would stop to seek cover.

  Caudia pushed him to close his eyes and focus on his hearing. It was not as human's. this was sharper, yet he heard nothing.

  'Patrol.' Caudia said. 'Two armored soldiers. two hundred paces south east. moving away.'

  Robert suspected she hid something. Or to be true, she hid many things. And he also knew she wouldn't tell. Still, he asked. 'How do you know? Do you have any kind of—'

  'Let's continue.'

  Robert pressed. 'Is it a sensor? Is it—'

  'Enough.'

  With her words, his will to talk banished and his desire to keep walking increased. His senses remained taut. Alert. Yet the few other times Claudia made him hide, the scene repeated. She'd know. She'd guide. He'd follow.

  'I'm just a dog on a leash, aren't I?'

  'Think it this way,' she said. 'We are a ship. you are the sails and I'm the wheel.'

  The forest welcomed him whole, comfortable with his silence. Above, the sun, free of any cloud, hit the land with fierce power. Its heat felt even among the shadows of the trees. The afternoon unfolded with more coolness thanks to a stronger wind and storm forming ahead. The evening, although the wind eased and the clouds banished, turned out much colder.

  As twilight fell, Robert's eyes adjusted to the darkness. His steps remained silent and precise as well as during daytime.

  'Do you think the envelope will really reach him?' Robert said.

  'At this stage the probability is high.'

  Robert struggled to snort. An attempt of contempt Claudia didn't allow.

  'You are seeing the event as a random chance. As you did with the clues in the ship, the clues in the Marquisee and Mestra. You are missing the strategic design. I have been working on this for a long time. Orchestrating a sequence of signals that will guarantee our goal.'

  'Well, I'd have a better picture if you hadn't erased or locked me from the data.'

  'You don't need to know,' She said. 'You just need to walk.'

  Robert through the night like a wraith, each footstep a fight against Claudia's will. Each move, a struggle to challenge her authority.

  'All right,' She said. 'I'll give you more freedom of movement and explain more things to you. But you have to promise to do what I tell you every time.'

  This time she let him hum.

  'When we destabilized the Red Island and rescued the prisoners from Black Rock, I was certain our actions, although hidden, would raise interest. So, I made sure to leak enough information to mislead everyone but give some clues to spark the correct suspicions about me. No one would understand, one one would notice, but one person. A person who's interest in me is stronger than anything else. If that information had reached him, we have a chance to reach Herjard.'

  Night settled its weight upon his shoulders just as the sentinel oaks thinned behind him; whatever safety had existed beneath their boughs now belonged solely to ghosts who lingered among mushrooms and rotting leaves while he stepped forward into exposure’s yawning maw.

  Robert crouched low behind the moss-covered bulk of a fallen pine, his body utterly still as a mechanical horror lumbered into view. Ahead, the meadow stretched in a sea of swaying wildflowers, all their colors turned grey with the moonlight. Past the hill and far in the distance, the machine’s grotesque, segmented legs stomped the earth, crashing its beauty into ponds of mud.

  The thing moved with slow commitment, its armored shell glinting dully at each shake of its carcass. From its front emerged a long, skeletal barrel of an immense gun, sleek and tapered like a wasp’s stinger poised to strike.

  Then it paused.

  The barrel swung with chilling precision; not merely turning but seeking. Scouting. Robert didn’t breathe; didn’t blink. There was no pulse to quicken in his chest, no sweat to betray him.

  'What if your clues to be found had not reached that person?' Robert said.

  The machine resumed its lumbering path, joints creaking with each ponderous step. The rhythmic squeal of pistons and grinding gears echoed through the meadow as it advanced, a discordant symphony of malice.

  Hours stretched into half a day before the thing finally vanished beyond the horizon’s ragged edge; swallowed by the horizon with a long, never ending walk. All that remained was trampled grass and squeezed earth.

  Robert did not shift from his place behind the fallen oak; no muscles to be cramped or stiffened. The passage of hours stretched long, as did Claudia's answer. When she did speak, Robert reprised his walk to a distant, ruined village.

  'If all my efforts had failed to reach him. All my hope is lost.'

  Their procession to the shattered village stretched across the rest of the night. Broken cobblestones shifted underfoot like loose teeth as they navigated between leaning walls and collapsed roofs. When Robert slipped into the skeletal remains of the first collapsed house a new dawn had already begun its slow creep over distant hills.

  Before they could move toward the next crumbling structure, a terrible noise unfurled from the distance: first one engine's guttural growl, then another. Soon a chorus of mechanical beasts gulping air through rusted throats. Gears gnashed while unseen pistons hammered out their erratic rhythm until finally they saw them: hulking wagons rolling forward without beast. Their metal frames bore scars where armor had been dented by violence or time, their wheels wrapped in cracked black rubber .

  Robert settled onto a broken chair whose legs groaned beneath his weight. Outside, thunder grew louder as machines converged upon them. They surrounded every possible escape route before grinding to synchronized halts so precise it could only mean coordination from some distant, shared command.

  Then came a sound no human could shape into speech; metallic. Syllables crackling from cone-shaped devices bolted atop lead wagons' roofs:

  "Come outside. Unarmed and hands up," It said. "By order of the Emperor of Herjard, you must surrender to us. Comply, and you will not be harmed.”

  His body obeyed before thought could protest. Boots scuffing dust as Claudia guided him forward once more. Then, she spoke a last time before a horde of metal soldiers surrounded them.

  'There's still hope after all.'