Aryu could barely stand to see a trained Rider of the Inja Army falter, but that was what was happening to Stroan. Stroan had his orders, knew his responsibilities, and was duty-bound to fulfill them, but this was his first true recounting of these events, and it was becoming more than he could take.
Johan, remaining composed, asked yet again the question they all were thinking. “It's all right, Rider Stroan. We'd hear what you'd have to say if you'd tell us. We are men of the world now. We are ready.” Lies and bravado, every word of it. Aryu wanted no part in the story of an enemy with the apparent powers of the Old, with the ability to send armies running like Death Himself trailed after them.
“Machines,” he said, his voice beginning to trail off into a whisper. “Wave after wave of metal, robotic, heartless, evil machines. Each one of them bearing the stink of the forbidden ways that spawned them. Dear Great God of Dragons, we have lost the entire south coast of Inja to the Army of Old, and we have no way to stop it.”
Despite tens of thousands of years of history and evolution, a timeframe full of glories and mistakes, mankind as a people had insisted on empowering their own self-destruction to the point of near extinction on four very well-known occasions, each one ingrained in almost every sentient mind.
The first was a rumor. A legend no one alive could substantiate. It told the story of a great flood sent by God to purge the earth of those who displeased him. Only after the concurrent destructions did the rumor earn a place in the history books as a possible example of something similar happening. It was a fable that suddenly became feasible.
The second was at the dawn of more modern times, when mankind was evolving beyond its infancy. In a time of war, mankind chose to flex its muscle and revel in its own impossible strength. The stories of hellfire engulfing the earth in wave after wave of cleansing abomination was a tale repeated and altered very little with each subsequent generation. Retold to near-perfect accuracy by the few alive who were there so long ago.
From that time and after, most lived in a constant leeriness of anything of a mechanically advanced nature. This part of the world seemed to avoid it completely. Here, in the land some called Inja, so strong was the fear that most electronic and mechanical devices were banned, feared, and rarely spoken of. A self-imposed exile that had lasted centuries. This was where those with the greatest fear chose to live.
The only thing more feared were Embracers of the Power: which were the creators, commanders, and destroyers of God Himself. Embracer wrath and fury brought about the third Fall of Man. That was an extermination of the Divine so overwhelming in its scope that few alive could fathom it.
The fourth and most recent epic human mistake was an unmitigated and disastrous attempt by humans to grasp and control the wonders of the Old. Attempting not to harness the destructive powers of the Old but the creative and inventive aspects, the most recent near-apocalypse was during an age when man, feeling cocky in its survival of the inhuman wrath of God, traveled once again onto the path of the machine. Although an excellent story for a later time, the conclusion was the same.
It did not go well.
Mankind had escaped its own demise four times, but as two of those times were at the hands of “technological marvels,” machines had by this time developed a mythically evil quality. People all around this land were now so deathly afraid of anything more complicated than a combination of gears and pistons, they had elevated technology to something akin to undiluted, pure evil in its most basic form.
And, with a harsh wind attempting to kick up their terror, two men who not long ago desired nothing more than the peace and respect that was awaiting them in a village not far away, were now told that that evil had returned, reformed, reorganized, and was marching a path of horror that leads straight to their doorsteps. To imagine how one would feel knowing that the vanguard of Hell was approaching their home and loved ones, one would be at the threshold of understanding the terror these two felt at this moment.
Stroan couldn't bring himself to continue much more beyond the basics. All the southern colonies had begun a hasty retreat, with caravans like the one that just past them, and some much larger, charging north to the safety they thought they could find in the Great Range. Mankind always had a place in life for illusions.
Stroan knew the power of the enemy, and entrusted to these men that he wasn't at all convinced the Great Range would be any kind of barrier against such an awesome level of brutality.
Johan's face expressed a painful mix of confusion and nausea. Aryu could only stand mouth agape, in cold shock.
“They couldn't be...” Johan choked out at last, breaking the silence fear had created. “It was gone from here. It was TOLD to us! We got rid of it! Destroyed and buried it centuries ago. This whole part of the world is defenseless!” Rage was beginning to add itself to his simmering pot of emotion. No one knew more than Johan about the history, the results, and the unmitigated lunacy of dealing with the power of the Old. There had never been a good result, and every victory was bathed in the blood of countless innocents.
Stroan had no answer. He simply shook
