The Long Night

It was thirty seconds to midnight.

In the dark hours of the early morning, Prince Angel Faolin had been roused by a deep, thrumming mechanical hum. His country, Gethmane, was at war in the south so such noises were not unusual: another passing warship sailing down from the mountains to join the battles against the Galisthroan forces. Still, the distant war unsettled his young mind.

He’d risen from the inn room, escorted by two of his men, and gone outside to walk and enjoy the cold air. The more excitable part of him was hoping to see the warship convoy pass by.

His visit to the fishing village of Lurmanta was official business — a state visit to maintain morale among the civilians while the rest of his family were engaged in the war response. He and his Royal Guard were passing through on their way to Gern from the capital, Vankus City.

They’d stopped, spending the night here before continuing to the next stop of their royal tour. A few more days travel lay ahead of them.

The youngest of the three Faolin brothers at a mere sixteen years old, Angel was rarely allowed outside the castle walls. The state visits were a complicated and sometimes dry business, but he was relishing these new opportunities to explore his father’s kingdom. He wasn’t allowed to fight; instead, all standard royal duties had been dropped on his head like a heavy yoke, but he bore the burden gladly.

Wandering over the grassy knolls with his protective and zealous guards, he’d discovered a tight cave system carved into the hillside overlooking the village. The young boy in him wanted to enter and explore but the adult in him knew such things would never be allowed — after all, he couldn’t get his robes dirty while he was on royal business, and the guards would never be able to squeeze through with their full plate armour.

Instead, he sat down on one of the rocks, straining his eyes to locate the warships but the ocean remained still. On either side of him, the guards kept a silent vigil over the young monarch.

The sun began to glisten over the abundant waters, and the teenager admired the beauty of the Autumn morning. Everything was so serene and sleepy. Unbeknown to the prince and his escort, the world was now a mere fifteen seconds to midnight.

The intruders announced their arrival with a deafening horn blast: a decree of some kind.

Angel threw his hands to his ears as the sudden thunder stole his balance, ripping through his head as he fell to the grass. His guards both collapsed too but were quick to get to their feet, helping the prince up as they scanned their surroundings for the audio source, rapidly drawing their swords.

The first submersibles rose from the waters, their iron hulls glistening and shimmering as the water cascaded off the iron giants. They stood up tall, stretching their shiny jointed limbs. A second group rose behind them, both sets of distinct machines towering over the exposed and pathetic little village.

The dreadnoughts, the first to rise, stood closest with their heavy guns trained on the shoreline. They stood on two legs like a man, top heavy and loaded down with unspeakable instruments of violence as puffs of red and black smoke periodically appeared from funnels on their shoulders.

Behind them, another type of machine stood, cold and still as a corpse, smaller than the dreadnoughts. These ones seemed more balanced in stature; their three oddly organic legs were jointed like straws and dangling from their gleaming, metallic torsos, appendages like arms hung loose with dead tendrils limp and lapped at by the curious waves that had concealed them mere moments ago.

Prince Angel had never seen anything like this, not even among the war machines of the Gethmanic military. Ships? Submarines? No. These horrors looked like metal men as they glared down upon the shore from unseen eyes hidden amongst cogs and joints and plating.

The fishermen roused and emerged from their cabins, terrified, and confused at the thunderous drone. The remaining Royal Guard sprang into action, splitting off into groups to try to flank the machines.

It was futile.

Another horn blast shattered the tense air. A declaration of war.

The first of the dreadnought cannons fired. Living souls erupted into clouds of red mist and bone shards sprayed out like shrapnel. Gone, in the blink of an eye. Angel couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak.

At his sides, the guards screamed something. He was grabbed by heavy plate gauntlets so tightly he felt his forearms might break and shoved towards the crevice behind them. As one guard pushed the prince in to the dip in the stone, the other began their descent towards the shore to join their fellow soldiers.

Angel could barely fit through the stone. Tight. Painful. He had no choice but to do as he was told: to hide. He didn’t fully enter the crevice though. Instead, he watched as his guardian joined the other soldier and the pair darted down towards the beach like ants towards a horde of golems.

The prince watched in horror as the guns rattled like thunder, spraying the shoreline in sweeping motions. A crescendo of hellish music screeched out through the morning sunlight, screams of agony and anguish as steel collided with bone, shattering and splintering, crushing, and contorting.

The dreadnoughts continued their advance on the huts. The dormant harvesters suddenly sprung to life. The scent of blood stirred them and now their metal tendrils hungered, swinging out, lashing over the beach, grabbing bodies like greedy children grasping for candy.

Those blasted by the guns were the lucky ones. Screams were abruptly cut short as living people were tossed into the grinders like twigs, spraying a sickening red gruel over the sand.

Angel tried to scream but no sound came out of his throat. With each soul devoured by the raging maw of crushing metal teeth, the large tanks on the harvesters’ backs began to fill with a deep, sanguine liquid. They were collecting the blood.

One of the harvesters connected with a dreadnought. Its tendrils all plugged into something on the back of the dreadnought — Angel couldn’t make it out. Black smoke pumped from the funnels on the dreadnought’s back as the blood tank on the harvester drained. They disconnected from each other and in seconds, the dreadnought was charging up its eerie cannons and dispersing chaos on the village once more.

They were fuelling their war machines with human matter.

One of the harvesters chased down the commander of his royal guard escort — Angel recognised her from the golden armour glistening in the morning sun. He wanted to cry out to her, but his body refused to cooperate once more. She was running blindly toward a dreadnought, its janky and contorted movements gaining momentum as they approached each other.

The harvester lashed out with one of its nightmarish tendrils, swiping her feet from her.

She fell. The dreadnought, instead of firing its guns, raised a mammoth iron leg, bringing it down hard on her skull as an eruption of sand lifted into the air. The harvester’s tendril wrenched her out from under the leg, tearing her apart and her limp, broken body was flung into the air, destined for the grinder.

A bolt of lightning struck the sand much closer and the earth under Angel’s feet trembled. The two guards who had been with him mere moments ago were blasted high into the air, crumpling like paper dolls as their bodies hit the earth hard.

Angel could watch no more. He turned his head from the carnage and pushed his hands against the rock, trying to leverage himself and squeeze through the small gap. His robes tore as regal velvet and silk caught on the crags. A particularly nasty rock edge sliced into his chest as he manoeuvred himself, leaving a dark smear on the stones near the entrance. Adrenaline dulled the pain.

Finally, he was inside the sanctuary of the cave. It was a small area, but he had enough room to stand fully and move about. Realising he had a sliver of safety, his legs gave way and he collapsed, falling hard on his tail bone as his full body began to tremble uncontrollably.

He needed to process what he had just witnessed but his brain couldn’t make sense of the maelstrom of chaos. His mind was racing so fast he couldn’t recognise any coherent thoughts.

The screams were ongoing as the shunting thuds of metal legs continued shaking the earth. The machines had advanced onto dry land.

He was ravenous. He needed water. He had to get back to Vankus and warn the King of the coming machines. Fear paralysed him though. Instead, the young prince pulled his knees up to his chest and began to rock back and forth, covering his ears to drown out the metallic hellscape but he couldn’t escape the horrors.

The machines were at least a quarter mile away from his location but the oddly rhythmic shunting and clanging of those legs sounded like it was mere yards away.

Angel wondered if there were men inside those suits or if they were their own masters. He wasn’t sure which possibility was the more unsettling.

These monstrosities were from the Galisthroan army. They had to be. The conflict had been escalating in the southern deserts of Abermijah for three years since the border dispute, when both Galisthros and Gethmane had flexed their military muscles to defend their respective allies.

Hours passed. More metal men came. Angel dared not leave the cave but with each passing hour, he would edge near the entrance to observe. Outside, the hulking metal feet of the mammoth dreadnoughts slammed into the wet mud and sand over and over as they dredged the beach, sucking up any traces of blood and collecting the dead.

They worked in trios; two dreadnought death machines loaded down with their wicked weapons patrolled alongside each harvester as the latter scooped up the bodies of the deceased, tossing them into the grinder mounted on its back.

All those hopes and dreams, memories and loves — merely biofuel for these war machines. When each tank was full, the trio would stop and the harvester would plug in to each dreadnought, pumping them full of their grotesque cargo.

Night fell and the rhythmic shunting of the metal legs finally began to fade. The silence was deafening. Unnerving. Still, Angel did not dare approach the entrance.

Instead, he finally crumpled to the stone floor, finally able to breathe. Slumber took him instantly, but his rest would not be long nor peaceful.

Krrrrrk. Krrrrrk. Krrrrk.

His eyes shot open. The scraping sound was coming from the crevice. His breath became shallow, laboured yet almost silent as he cast his eyes all around him. The crevice was his only escape. He paused, straining his ears. The machines were gone yet something was out there.

Another human, perhaps?

Quiet as a mouse, he reached down, slowly, carefully unlacing his leather boots. He gently wedged his feet out of each one, placing them silently on the stone floor. He couldn’t risk any noise. The rocks were freezing under his skin, painful and still he crept forward, in long, slow movements, terrified of slipping or making any noise to alert whatever lingered at that crevice entrance.

Approaching, he slowed his breathing almost to a halt until his lungs became painful.

Something was swooshing around the crevice entrance. What on earth…?

He squinted. Closed his eyes. Opened them once more and with great horror, he realised his vision was not deceiving him. Both hands darted up to cover his mouth. His body wanted to scream but his mind would not allow it, choking the noise in his throat before it became audible.

Mere meters away from him, a thick, glistening tendril scraped at the bloodstained stone, lapping at it with a metal needle.

Krrrrk. Krrrrk.

Angel’s heart was going to burst as it thundered in his chest so painfully, he feared the harvester might hear it beating. Another tendril poked into

the tight space. Then another, exploring as far as they could stretch. Angel was frozen in terror, his painful feet like blocks of lead glued to the stone.

The two new tendrils stretched out towards him in one rapid movement. These things could sense him. Crushing his eyes closed, he began to silently mouth prayers to the old gods. He felt a warmth suddenly rushing down his leg. The fear was too much. He was going to die.

Any second now.

The end never came. Reopening his eyes was exhausting, each lid feeling like ten tonnes of steel as the terror trembled through his blood. The tendrils could not reach him. Any moment now, he imagined a dreadnought would arrive and blast the crevice with its cannons, shattering his sanctuary and cracking the rock open like an egg to let the harvester lap at the bloody yolk within.

He had to move. He allowed himself a slow, agonising step backward, gently feeling behind himself for the cave wall to steady himself. Something moved under his touch — a spider perhaps — but he was too numb to even realise.

One step back. Another step back.

The tendrils strained and begged for his blood, but the prince made his way cautiously back into the deeper recess of the cave.

Slowly. Slowly.

The tension was shattered as a thunderous blast of those dreadnought horns tore through the night. It was deafening. One by one, the tendrils retreated and with great relief, he heard the shunting metal steps as the harvester was called away. The machines were moving on.

He crept cautiously back towards the entrance. A bright orange glow suddenly filled the crevice and a loud, closer machine moved past. It was a dreadnought — he could tell from the loud two-step rhythm before he even saw the monstrosity as the earth shook around him with each step.

It passed him without incident as he held his breath once more, paralysed by fear, and in the strange light, he saw the insignia emblazoned on the back of that infernal machine as it pumped its smoke out into the night.

The Chromatic Order.

The elite soldiers of the Galisthroan army. Men. They had made their move.

It was ten seconds to midnight.

He had to flee back to the castle, but the very thought chilled him to the bone. He was alone, a child in a new mechanical war zone. He’d learned from these machines though. They followed the scent of blood and when that seemed to run dry, they moved on. He had to travel by night, to hide like game from the hunter’s rifle, to ensure he did not cut himself, to move unseen and undetected by the cold and unsympathetic eyes of the soldiers.

The acrid scent of smoke filled his nostrils, but he dared not move. Not yet.

The steps faded into the distance, further and further until everything was silent.

The prince wasn’t sure how long he waited, as that glow flickered and danced at the cave entrance, but eventually he inhaled deeply, his head falling back as he silently thanked the gods.

He put his boots back on his soaked feet and squelched towards the crevice entrance. There were scrape marks all over the rocks.

Outside, his heart fell. Lurmanta was in flames.

Angel had been spared the horrors of war, his brothers refusing to even tell him tales of their regal and honourable exploits in Abermijah.

Now he understood why. There was no pride in this. There was no honour.

The machines were moving north, away from the capital. Angel was confused — the capital lay in the southeast. Why were they moving north? He knew more would come. He would make his way through the countryside, warning anyone he could, screaming at them to flee and hide, to go underground or into the caves.

He would warn his brothers, his father, and the Kingdom of Vankus would mount an offensive to cleanse their land of this wicked scourge.

The clock struck five seconds to midnight.

As the young prince clambered through the blazing sands crying for survivors, he found nothing. Not one skull or bone remained, not a single building escaped the lick of the flames. He had no food, no water, no choice. Out of time and out of options, the prince turned on his heel and began to flee southeast. He had to warn his father.

The teenager had no idea the attack wasn’t just isolated to Lurmanta. All along the coastlines of Gethmane, a coordinated assault had already ravaged the villages and towns. There were no survivors; the victims were powering the very machines that were already advancing on the capital city.

Only one unit was moving north instead, to the mountains where Prince Reiven was leading the assault against the first Galisthroan soldiers to violate their shores.

Gethmane was already aware of Galisthros’s coming siege and the deployment of their Chromatic Order forces. Their spies infiltrated the Galisthroan royal courts and the Chromatic Order long ago before the Dark War had even begun and Gethmane had been quietly preparing.

The king sat on his throne, accompanied by the queen consort and their oldest son, the crown prince, surrounded by their soldiers. Prince Angel, fleeing through the night, and his brother Prince Reiven would not witness the darkness that was about to descend on their homeland.

All that was left now was to wait as the shunting of the distant machines became audible.

The clock struck midnight.

The end was here but unfortunately for the Chromatic Order forces and the continent of Galisthros itself, the long night had already begun.

The ritual was complete. Their call answered. The transformations began.

The Dark War was over.