Tom burst through a ground-floor door into Hope’s courtyard. He’d changed into his piloting clothes, but they were already sticking to the sweat on his back.

Taka was already there, as always. He stood on top of a wooden platform that was about level with Hope’s knee, which had been mostly disassembled. Taka had a wooden gear in one hand, which he was whittling down with a thin knife. His face was scrunched up in concentration. Tom cleared his throat as he got near, and Taka glanced up and blinked.

“Almost done!” he called out, and took two more cuts before replacing the gear and re-assembling Hope’s knee. “You can get someone else to put up the ladder,” he yelled, barely audible with his head inside Hope’s knee joint.

“That’s okay,” Tom said. “I’m here to wait anyway.” He looked up at the darkening sky. A few stars already hung in the deepening blue. Tense men wearing dull metal breastplates and thin leather armor stood guard along the walls. Lookouts called to each other in short bursts of code words. Tom wondered what they meant.

He heard the swish of silks, and turned to see Alyas hurrying across the courtyard towards him. She smiled at him and blushed a bit. He wondered why.

She came up to him and bowed slightly, then turned to look at Hope. Tom did the same, having no idea what to say to her.

“I just finished blessing Guardian,” she said, abruptly.

“…Ah,” Tom replied.

Alyas turned to Tom. “Thank you,” she said. Tom turned back to face her. “Adam told me that you decided to stay. I want to thank you. You are our last hope. Without you, the Trych would completely overwhelm us, and we would be no more.” She looked so sincere, her eyes boring into his, though her face also contained a hint of confusion.

Tom frowned. “You still don’t understand why I’m doing this, do you?” he said. She could only shake her head. “What’s so weird about helping other people?” he asked.

“Of course, any good person wants to help others,” she said. “But you want to help others who are not in your family, in your country.”

“So if you came across someone from another country who was beat up on the side of the road and needed your help, you wouldn’t do anything?”

“Of course I would!” she said. “But that’s completely different.”

“Why?”

“I am the High Priestess of Braskil. It is my duty to help those less fortunate.”

“I don’t mean that!” Tom shouted. “Wouldn’t anybody help someone like that?”

She paused, then said firmly, “No.”

Tom couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Just at that moment, Taka hopped down and ran over to the ladder, grabbing it and levering it into place. Tom turned, strode over to the ladder, and climbed up. The ladder hardly bounced at all. Tom hoisted himself into the slight coolness of the cockpit, twisted around, and settled himself into the seat. The inside still smelled like dust.

He looked down at Alyas, who was already praying. The armor in front of him closed down and began to fade away.

“Adam?” said Tom, hoping Adam could hear him.

“Yeah?” came Adam’s voice, echoing slightly.

“What do we do now?”

“I guess we just sit and wait. The lookouts will call if the Trych get any closer.”

“Okay.” Tom thought for a second. There was an edge to Adam’s voice, a slight sound of annoyance. Tom thought about saying something, but decided against it.

Tom sat. He looked down at Taka, who was busying himself in a large tool chest nearby. Tom strained himself forward, and Hope magnified his view so he could see Taka as though he was only a few yards away. Judging from Taka’s distracted movements, he didn’t really need to do anything in the box. He was just making himself busy. Alyas was already on her way out of the courtyard, returning to the castle to do whatever else she had to do as a priestess.

Tom looked back up at the castle walls, and the view zoomed back out to normal. Guards still stood there, nervously. Tom listened for a few moments to the calls of the lookouts.

His right foot began to itch. He knew if he tried to scratch it, he’d make the Giant Armor hop around and look crazy, so he gritted his teeth.

One of the doors into the courtyard banged open, and Tom looked down in surprise. Half a dozen archers carrying large quivers poured through the doorway and set themselves up in the courtyard. A few of them spared awed glances at the Giant Armor. Tom spent a few minutes watching them string their bows and put themselves at just the right distance from their quivers so they could draw an arrow almost instantly. A few practiced drawing arrows, their hands whipping from the bow to the quiver in seconds.

The itch grew worse. Tom shifted his weight slightly, and several of the archers looked up at him. Out of sheer boredom, he waved, and the men broke into grins and waved back.

“There they are! Trych!” The cry went up from the guards on the north wall, who pointed north and yelled. Tom arched his back and flew upwards, then floated back down onto the flat top of one of the castle’s massive outer towers. He stood there for a moment, nervous, but the stone beneath him didn’t budge.

Two men stood guard on this tower, and they both glanced up nervously at the three-story Armor as it peered towards the north. All three looked back out at the forest. A black cloud of Trych hovered a few hundred yards away, shimmering with the beating of a thousand wings in the deepening grey of twilight. Fortunately, the moon was out. Tom glanced up and, for the first time, noticed that there were two moons: a medium-sized one and a smaller one, both hanging low.

Tom tensed to launch himself at the Trych, but he heard Brask’s voice yell “Wait!” Tom turned and saw a small hatchway, which was the top of a staircase leading down into the castle. Brask was just running up it. He grabbed a tower wall to steady himself and catch his breath, then looked up at the Giant Armor.

“Don’t attack,” Brask replied, serious and steady. “They haven’t attacked us yet.”

Tom frowned, frustrated. “But they’re our enemy. Won’t we be better off if we take out some of them now?”

“No,” commanded Brask, his voice loud and deep. He was in full commander mode. “You will not attack until they attack us first. Is that clear?”

Tom’s frown deepened, but he nodded. He couldn’t understand why Brask didn’t want to take advantage of this opportunity.

“Tell Adam,” Brask said. “I have other things to attend to.” He descended the stairs, more regally this time.

Tom frowned and called out, “Adam?”

“Yeah. I overheard some of it. We shouldn’t attack yet?”

“Not until they attack us first.”

“I can live with that. Less dangerous.”

“I guess so. Hey, where are you?”

“West end of the castle, on one of the towers. I can see the bugs from here.”

“Hey, me too! But I’m on the east, I think.”

“Yeah, I think there’s another tower between us.” Adam paused, then with that tinge of annoyance in his voice, asked, “Well, any ideas, newbie?”

Tom was so surprised by Adam’s hostility that all he could think of to say was, “I guess we wait some more.”

They grew silent, and Tom continued to stare out at the Trych, who for their part continued to hover well out of arrow range.

He heard someone clear their throat. He looked down, and one of the guards was looking up at him. “Um,” the guard said, his voice high and nervous.

“What is it?” said Tom, trying not to sound too impressive. The Armor knew somehow to project his voice out of the Armor.

“What, uh…what’s it like?” the guard asked.

Tom blinked. “Um, what?”

The guard swallowed. “What’s it like, inside there?”

Tom couldn’t help grinning. “I can see all around me! It’s like the Armor isn’t even there. Everything I do moves it. It doesn’t even feel like I’m controlling it; it’s like the Armor is a bigger version of me.”

“Does it make you feel…powerful?” the guard asked.

Tom thought for a second. “Not really. I never really thought of it like that. The Armor feels powerful, but I don’t know if I really feel like it’s my power. I mean, it feels like it’s just a bigger version of me. But it’s not. Without the Giant Armor, I’m…just a kid.”

They shared a moment of silence as they both let that sink in.

Something whistled through the air and splatted onto Hope’s left knee. Tom looked down; thanks to the weird invisibility of the Giant Armor, it looked like a large patch of green slime hung in space about ten feet above the tower’s stone surface.

He heard another whistle. This time, the goo missed him and flew down into the courtyard. Tom turned and looked; it had hit one of the archers. The others were already rushing to his aid, and he looked shaken but all right as they dragged him out of the sticky mess.

Another patch of goo hit Hope, this time on the chest. “Adam?” Tom called out.

“Yeah? You getting hit with some kind of green goop?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“No idea. Look, can you quit bothering me? I need to get this stuff off.”

“…Okay.”

Tom reached down to pull off the goo on his leg, but his leg wouldn’t bend properly. The goo was hardening.

Tom began frantically wiping at the goo, but the stuff on his leg was like chewing gum, and the stuff on his chest was so wet it just got all over his hands. So now his hands were covered with it. And his hands were beginning to harden.

He heard a whooshing sound. A flock of arrows flew over his head, and he followed their path directly into a mass of oncoming Trych. They were attacking!

Tom leapt up at the bugs, figuring he’d at least get some distance from the castle, and threw out his arms so that the blades latched into place. He began slicing at the bugs, but he was moving so slowly now that he could barely even hit any of them, much less cut through them. The bugs began to climb onto him, hacking away at Hope’s armor, their curved blades glittering in the moonlight as they rose and fell. He couldn’t even brush them off.

He had to get these bugs off. He dove straight down towards the ground outside the town walls. He slammed into packed dirt, gritting his teeth at the impact, then immediately rolled to his right. He heard squeals and sickening crunches as bugs were crushed beneath the weight of the Giant Armor. He slowly climbed to his feet. He was just outside the castle walls, near the tree line. The bugs weren’t paying him much attention now. Which, he thought, was weird. If they had a hive mind, wouldn’t they know that a bunch of them had just been squashed?

He turned his attention to the goo, which still had a bit of give. He needed some way of getting it off. Scraping wouldn’t work. His eyes were drawn to the torches flickering on the castle’s walls. Fire!

He took a deep breath and yelled, “Someone! Throw me down a torch!”

There was no response for a moment, then he heard a voice yell down, “That might start a fire in the forest, Master Tom!” It was the same guard that Tom had talked to earlier. He yelled back, “I need your help! Just…trust me, as a pilot!”

There was another short pause, then a torch flew over the battlements and fell to the ground. Fortunately, it was still on fire; Tom wondered what they used to make torches in this world. Tom scooped it up in one hand and tossed it into the leaves of a nearby tree, and when it began to spread, he dragged Hope a few trees farther and, with every ounce of strength he had, sliced at the trunk of one of them. It fell, cut clean in two. He continued in a half-circle around the tree he’d lit on fire, working as fast as he could, listening to the whistles, clatters, and screams of the battle. He finally managed to clear a space around a small stand of trees, which was quickly catching fire. He took a breath and walked straight into the middle of the flame.

It was very, very hot in the center. Hope heated up quickly, and Tom hoped it had some magical charm that would keep it from catching fire itself. Sweat sprung out on his brow, then his cheeks, and within a few seconds he was covered in it. His breath began to come in long gasps as his skin prickled. He was surrounded by brilliant, ever-shifting reds and yellows and whites, so bright he had to squint. He wondered how the battle was going.

He shifted his weight as a test, and was thrilled to discover he could move more freely. He swung his arms around and saw the goo sag and melt away. He shook himself, violently, then scraped against the burning tree trunks, and he was finally free.

He leapt into the air, into a dense cloud of Trych, and immediately began swatting and slicing and swatting. They weren’t exactly expecting a Giant Armor to burst out of a blazing stand of trees, so they didn’t put up much of a fight. But there were so many of them, it was like cutting through the ocean.

He fought his way to the castle wall. Trych swarmed over the castle, some even hanging off the walls. A few guards were bravely facing off against the Trych, but none of the men lasted long. The courtyards were covered with Trych, and somewere banging and clawing at the doors. The doors seemed to be holding. At least, he couldn’t see Trych getting into the castle anywhere.

That was when Tom spotted Guardian. It lay in one of the courtyards. It was covered in so many frenzied Trych that Tom could catch only glimpses of the Giant Armor beneath. He realized it was missing one leg and both hands. Worse, somehow, its head was smashed in.

All the anger and frustration and loss and confusion of the past few days flooded through Tom, and he was filled with a bloody rage. He screamed and began slicing at Trych, pushing forward towards the Giant Armor below. More Trych came at him, and he cut and sliced and killed dozens and dozens and dozens of bugs.

They still came, and he continued to kill. He fought his way down to Guardian, where the Trych covering it swarmed up and attacked him. They were dead within seconds. He continued to spin and cut and thrust and attack, always looking for more Trych, always finding and killing and finding more. He wasn’t even thinking any more; he was a machine dedicated to the eradication of all Trych. There was nothing else for him at that moment. He became distantly aware that his arms and legs were tired. He simply ignored it and continued to kill.

It dawned on him that it took him a fraction longer to find a group of Trych after killing the previous one. The Trych were thinning out. He continued to go after them, cutting into as many as he could, until he was chasing them away from the castle. He paused and saw that the remaining Trych were scattering into the woods. Conscious thought was returning to him. He floated down to the courtyard and heard a crunch as Hope’s feet made contact. He looked down and saw that the courtyard was completely carpeted with the bodies of the Trych he’d killed.

‘Thomas!” Brask’s voice echoed from the other side of the castle. Tom turned to see a figure silhouetted against the largest moon: Brask, his arms outstretched. “Go after them, Thomas!” Brask yelled. “Or they may turn back and attack us again tonight!”

Anger rose in Tom’s heart again, but slower this time, and he was able to tamp it down. He rose up in the air and flew like a missile straight at the nearest group of Trych he could see. He came up behind them and cut them down, bits of shredded wing spinning off in mid-beat like snowflakes. They didn’t even turn back to fight him; they just kept flying away. And he kept cutting.

He felt bile rise up in his throat, and swallowed the bitter taste. This wasn’t defending the castle. It wasn’t even fighting. It was like throwing rocks at birds.

They were far enough away that he pulled back and looked around him. The Trych were hundreds of yards from the castle, and flying away fast. Brask couldn’t ask any more of him now.

He flew back at full speed and landed with a sickening crunch in the courtyard where Guardian lay, broken. People were now swarming all over Guardian, working frantically to get to the boy inside.

Tom made Hope sit on the ground, then leaned forward and popped the cockpit open. He vaulted out of the Giant Armor and scrambled over the bodies of hundreds of Trych to get to Guardian. As he neared it, there was a cry from the crowd, and he saw several people pull out some kind of stretcher. Adam lay on it, and though Tom couldn’t see him very well, he could see dried blood.

The crowd rushed Adam away and into the castle, Tom following close behind. They hurried into the infirmary, but an old man stepped in front of Tom before he could enter. Tom looked up at him fiercely, but the man shook his head and said, “Magic is done in here. You wouldn’t help, and you might hinder.”

Almost blind with frustration—Of course kids aren’t allowed, he thought, everyone here thinks they only get in the way—he turned and nearly slammed into Brask, who barely noticed Tom.

“How is he?” Brask asked the old man.

“Badly hurt. Our skills and power will be put to the test tonight.”

“But he will recover?”

The old man paused. “I think so. But it may take days, even weeks before he can pilot again.” That took a moment to sink in. “Now please excuse me, Lord Brask. I have very many wounded to tend to tonight.” The old man closed the door, leaving them in stunned silence.

Tom turned on Brask. “Okay,” Tom said. “How do we get them?”

Brask just looked at him. “What?” he said, his voice tinged with annoyance.

“We have to finish this. We have to finish them off. We have to attack them.”

Brask shook his head. “No, impossible.”

“It better not be!” Tom retorted. “We have no other choice. There’s only one Giant Armor now; Guardian’s in pieces. We can’t just defend ourselves any more.”

Brask waved a hand vaguely. “I’ll have Alyas summon another pilot.”

“Even that might not be enough. We were both fighting tonight. And even if you do, how long will it take for the pilot to show up? Adam said I appeared days after you all cast the spell to bring me here. And how do you know he’ll be any better than me?”

Tom inched forward, determination set in his face, a tiny part of him amazed that he was doing this. “Look,” he said. “We have to follow through on this. So we’ve gotten ourselves involved in a war. Fine. Then we have to fight to win it. Anything else would make us cowards.”

In the flickering torchlight, he could see that Brask was really listening to him, so he pressed on. “Besides, we’ve already taken care of a lot of Trych. How many more can there be? If we attack them, think of how many more we can take out!”

Brask nodded, slowly. “I shall think about this,” he said. Tom nodded back, satisfied that at least he’d been heard. He wondered why it was so difficult to get grown-ups to really listen to kids.

Brask’s face softened and he said, “You look like you’ve had a bad night. You’d better get some rest. Anyone can guide you back to your room.”

Tom wanted to say something, but he was suddenly too tired. The night’s events caught up with him, and he felt his muscles sag. He turned and walked down the corridor until he found somebody who took him back to his room. He crawled into bed, not even removing his sweat-soaked clothing, and immediately fell asleep.

Leave a Reply