He awoke wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, all twisted around him in his sleep. He couldn’t remember his dreams this morning, but he could hear that girl’s voice just fainting away. As he shook his head to clear it, he heard wood rubbing against fabric. He snapped his head up and looked over at the door, blinking to clear his eyes, to see his maid hurrying out of the room, leaving a chair rock slightly on the carpet.

Tom stretched like a cat in the sunlight, but continued to lie there. He let himself relax into the blankets, feeling their warm softness on his arms and legs. He let his mind wander.

He wondered about the other Giant Armor. He figured it must have had a pilot. Probably another kid. His dreams snapped back into focus.

What if the the girl in his dreams was connected to all this?

The door clicked open, and in strode Brask, his face lined with worry. He came over to the bed and gave Tom a small smile. He said, “You had some of us worried last night.”

“Huh?”

“You practically fell out of Hope, which was in a pretty bad state itself. Fortunately, it looks like you’ll both be as good as new by tomorrow.”

Tom gave him a tired smile. “Those Trych aren’t going to get me down that easily. Not even when they pulled out that giant Trych.”

Brask’s eyebrows shot up. “It appeared again?”

Tom nodded. “I pulled its arm off, so it’s pretty damaged, but…well, it can probably be repaired, too. It’ll be back.”

Brask thought for a moment, then forced himself to smile. “Well, fortunately, you won’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m sending you home. Adam, as well.”

Tom felt like he’d been punched. “Why?” he asked.

Brask sighed, as if not even trying to fight back. “This fight has become too much for us. We can’t fight back any more, especially not against a Giant Trych.”

Tom was very quiet. “What are you going to do?”

“We fall back. We leave. We take what few of us are left, and we let the Trych take over this place. We return the Giant Armors, and we keep a distant eye on them.”

Tom’s jaw dropped. “You’re leaving? You’re giving up?”

Brask set his jaw. “Too many of us are dead, Thomas. If we lose any more people, we won’t be able to keep the castle going. There won’t be enough children. Our clan will die.”

Tom frowned and said nothing. This felt like the wrong choice, but he didn’t know why. Suddenly the frustration and anger at being kept completely in the dark about all these decisions bubbled up. Tom pushed them back down, looked up at Brask, and decided to act.

“So where did the pit come from?” Tom asked, keeping his voice as light as he could.

Brask’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s a Trych nest,” he said.

Tom shook his head. “The pit was surrounded with wheelbarrows and barrels. Not bug stuff; human stuff.”

Brask frowned. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If there’s nothing else….” He turned to leave.

“Okay,” Tom said. “I’ll ask some other people in the castle about it, then.”

“You will ask no such questions!” Brask said, wheeling around.

Tom carefully kept himself still. He was not about to blow this with an outburst of anger. He wouldget answers. He leaned forward slightly. “Are you sure you want to yell at me?” Tom asked, his voice level. “Are you sure you want to threaten me? Are you sure you can afford to stop me?”

Color rushed to Brask’s face, which contorted into an ugly mask of fury. He turned again and began to storm out.

“Okay,” Tom said. “I’ll ask around. Somebody will tell me the truth. And I won’t have heard it from you.”

Brask froze. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles were white. Finally he let out a strangled sigh and leaned against the door, putting a hand out to steady himself.

He turned and slumped in the chair, closing his eyes. He spent a few moments just sitting there. Tom waited patiently.

“There are legends,” he began, his voice low. It was the first time Tom had ever heard Brask speak quietly. “A thousand years ago, there was an ancient clan who created many great wonders. They buried some of their creations deep in the earth, perhaps so they could return for them. That clan is gone now, but I came across some old documents that suggested there was a pit of ancient wonders on my very own land.

“We began to dig. We found the pit to the north, and within it were two Giant Armors. Guardian and Hope. Along with them were the spells needed to summon pilots. We moved the Armors to the castle, and cast the spells.

“Nothing happened. Nobody arrived. But, within the hour, the Trych appeared and were swarming all over the castle. We fought them as best we could, but…so many men died.”

He took a deep breath. The room was absolutely still. “The next day, Adam appeared inside Guardian. I was…surprised.” He gave Tom and Adam haunted looks. “I did not know that the spell would summon children, and children from another world at that. But there was nothing I could do.”

“We tried other people, other children. None of them could make either of the Armors move in the least. Only Adam, and even he was uncoordinated and doing poorly against the Trych.”

He sighed again. “I had no choice. I had to summon you, Tom. And that’s where we are.”

Anger surged in Tom’s heart again, but he pushed it down through sheer force of will. He could at least appreciate the problem Brask had faced. But he couldn’t get over Brask’s view.

“So you summoned me here to fix your problem?” Tom asked, managing to keep most of his anger out of his voice.

Brask’s eyes went wide. “No!” he said. “I had no choice. We had no choice.”

Tom snorted. “There’s always a choice,” he replied.

Brask had nothing to say. He stood up abruptly and swept out of the room.

Tom fell back into the bed, looking up at the ceiling but not seeing it. So that was the truth. He’d suspected that much. Now, what to do about it?

The maid brought a tray laden with food, and quickly left Tom alone. This disappointed him; he wanted to talk to her. It was like she wanted to be invisible to everyone.

Tom sat on the bed and ate meats and fruits that he didn’t even try to identify. He barely tasted them. Brask’s words reverberated in his head. Tom wanted someone to talk to. He resolved to find Adam, and that meant the hospital.

Tom pulled open the heavy wooden door and looked out into the hallway. It was empty; stripes of dust motes hung in the air. He walked down the hall, really looking at everything.

He could occasionally hear someone rummaging through things behind a door, but otherwise the castle felt empty. He looked down on the nearest courtyard and felt his stomach flip. The corpses still hadn’t been cleared away, just covered with a patchwork of tarps. One teenager—whose eyes looked dead—stood guard with a long bow, firing occasionally at any crow or vulture that attempted to land from the swarm that circled overhead.

It was easy to find the healer’s room, since so many people were rushing in and out of it. It seemed like half the castle’s occupants were either applying bandages or had bandages themselves. Sometimes both. The room had been a large hall once, and now was stuffed with beds of every shape, size, and material.

All of the beds were used, most of them occupied by men covered with large bandages. Several were missing an arm or leg. Their medicine clearly wasn’t up to what Tom was used to.

“Tom,” came a voice nearby. Tom whipped his head around and saw Adam laying in a large bed with clean, white sheets. He was propped up in bed, and smiling broadly.

Tom couldn’t help smiling back. He scanned Adam’s body. He was dressed in a plain white shirt and pants, but his arms and legs were covered with silver circlets. He looked okay, as far as Tom could tell. He glanced down at Adam’s hands, which looked perfectly normal.

“Are you…okay?” Tom asked.

“I am now,” Adam said. “But this magic stuff is pretty intense. I don’t remember much after the, um, the battle.” He cast his eyes down for a second. “It was mostly dreams. But then I woke up, and boy did I hurt! Felt like every bone in my body was breaking apart.”

He glanced around, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “They don’t tell me anything, but I think that’s basically what was happening. I think my bones were coming back together by magic. And from what I can tell…a lot of my bones needed it.”

His eyes shone, as though tears were close. “Thanks, Tom. If you hadn’t fought off the Trych….You saved my life.”

Tom swallowed, then couldn’t stop smiling. “Hey,” he said, “glad to do it. You would’ve done it for me, right?”

Adam looked away. “I’ve…been feeling…kinda jealous about you, Tom,” he said. “You’re just so good with that Giant Armor, and I guess I kinda resented you for it. It’s not like I wanted anything bad to happen to you, or anything, but….” He looked up, his face completely serious. “You’re better at this than I am, Tom, and I should’ve been supporting you. And I haven’t. And I’m sorry.”

Tom couldn’t think of anything to say. So he gave Adam a big smile and said, “Don’t worry about it.” Tom took a breath, then said, “Actually, I want to talk with you about something.”

Tom glanced around and saw that everyone was so busy wrapping wounds or talking that they were in little danger of being overheard.

“Brask told me that he’s planning to send us back. Back home.”

Adam pushed himself up a tiny bit in bed. “To Earth? Our Earth, I mean?”

Tom nodded, keeping his face neutral and serious. Several expressions played over Adam’s face: relief, happiness, deep thought, and finally, uncertainty. Tom found himself smiling slightly. “Looks like you feel pretty much how I do.”

“Huh? What do you feel?”

“Doesn’t feel right. We shouldn’t give up. Brask shouldn’t give up. And…heck, we’ve killed an awful lot of bugs. We can’t stop now, not when we’re so close.”

Adam nodded, looking down, though obviously his heart wasn’t completely in it. He raised his eyes to meet Toms’ and said, “But…we could go home.”

Tom sighed, feeling his friend’s uncertainty and sharing it. “Yeah. And I want that, too. But I don’t think we should go home. We’re the only ones who can stop the bugs. We have to stop them.” He leaned forward. “Remember that bakery we visited? That family will have to pull up everything and leave. Leave all of it, everything they’ve worked so hard to make. Don’t you want to stop that from happening?”

Adam closed his eyes then, and for a moment Tom thought he was trying to avoid the conversation. Then Adam squeezed his eyes, opened them, and nodded firmly at Tom. And then Tom realized that Adam had been letting go of his hopes of going home. He’d been committing himself to this.

Tom said, “So what now? Tell me what to do.”

“Can you go find Taka and the others and get our Armors ready?” Tom asked

Adam nodded and swung his legs over the bed. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“We can’t fly our Armors without Alyas.”

Leave a Reply