The mechanical shriek of the Burner Mech rattled Marcus's teeth.
The massive, twenty-foot walker dominated the burning clearing. Its thick, hydraulic legs crushed burning tree trunks into black splinters. Ash fell from the hyper-oxygenated canopy like black snow, settling on the slick, black armor of the machine.
Inside the thick, reinforced glass canopy, the clone pilot's grin was manic. He reached for the dual joysticks.
The twin industrial flamethrowers mounted on the Mech's mechanical arms whined to life.
"Get back!" Marcus roared at the scavengers, waving his combat knife.
He didn't have a tactical overlay to tell him the range of the weapons. He didn't need one. Warlord instinct told him everything within fifty feet was about to cease existing.
The scavengers who had boldly charged the bunker seconds ago, their pockets heavy with glowing Amps, froze in absolute terror. They stared up at the mechanical crab.
The Burner didn't hesitate.
The clone pulled the triggers.
A deafening WHOOSH swallowed the clearing.
Two massive torrents of thick, gelatinous, liquid fire erupted from the mechanical arms. The napalm didn't just burn; it stuck. It coated the ground, the trees, and the men in front of the machine in a blinding, searing orange inferno.
A dozen scavengers caught in the center of the blast didn't even have time to scream. They were instantly turned to ash, their blackened skeletons collapsing into the burning mud.
The sheer wave of heat threw Marcus backward.
He hit the muddy ground hard, his naval coat smoking. Marcia dropped beside him, shielding her face from the blinding light.
The Burner Mech took a heavy, thudding step forward. Its thick metal claw crushed the flaming, blackened skull of a fallen scavenger into powder.
The remaining mob broke completely. They threw down their rusted pipes and scavenged laser-cutters, scrambling backward into the jungle, trampling each other in their desperation to escape the fire.
"We can't fight that!" a scavenger screamed, his face blistered from the radiant heat. "It's a walking oven!"
Marcus pushed himself up. His eyes darted wildly over the machine, looking for weak points.
Without JARVIS, he couldn't see the thermal exhaust ports. He couldn't calculate the thickness of the glass canopy. He was blind, fighting a god-tier weapon with analog tools.
He looked at Marcia.
"What do we do?" Marcus shouted over the roar of the flames. "We can't outrun it. We can't shoot through that armor."
Marcia didn't look at the Warlord. She looked at the General.
Her Roman discipline, forged in the dirt of Syria, kicked in. She saw the panicked mob. She saw the narrow clearing. She saw the heavy, rusted scrap metal scattered across the ground from the destroyed landing craft.
She didn't see a high-tech mech. She saw a heavily armored war elephant.
And Romans knew how to kill elephants.
"Phalanx!" Marcia screamed, her voice cutting through the panic like a whip.
Marcus stared at her, stunned. A phalanx against a flamethrower?
"Decimus!" Marcia roared, spotting the loyal Legionnaire crouched behind a burning log. "Rally them! Grab the scrap! Form the wedge!"
Decimus didn't question her. He vaulted the log, grabbing a terrified scavenger by the collar.
"Get up!" Decimus bellowed, pointing his spear at a massive, rectangular sheet of rusted hull-plating lying in the mud. "Pick it up! Shield wall!"
The Warlord's Warlord had spoken.
The sheer authority in Marcia's voice snapped the scavengers out of their terror. They were desperate for orders. They grabbed the heavy, jagged pieces of scrap metal—ripped from boat hulls, old car doors, and thick steel crates.
They didn't run away. They ran together.
Under Marcia's barking commands, thirty men formed a tight, interlocking "V" formation in the center of the clearing, holding the heavy scrap metal in front of them like massive tower shields.
It was crude. It was ugly. It was Roman.
"Narcissus!" Marcia pointed her shotgun straight at the Burner Mech. "Point of the spear!"
The Iron Dog understood immediately.
He stomped to the very front of the wedge formation. He didn't carry scrap metal. He didn't need to. He was the shield.
The twelve-foot Dreadnought crossed his massive, battleship-steel arms over his chest plate, his hydraulic legs locking into the mud. He became the unbreakable tip of the human phalanx.
"Forward!" Marcia screamed, stepping into the center of the wedge, her shotgun raised over the makeshift shields.
The phalanx moved.
They didn't charge. They marched. A slow, grinding, terrifyingly disciplined advance directly toward the towering machine.
The clone pilot inside the Burner Mech stopped laughing. He stared down at the crude formation of mud-caked men and the iron giant leading them.
He slammed his joysticks forward.
The Mech unleashed a continuous, blinding stream of liquid fire directly at the center of the phalanx. At Narcissus.
The inferno hit the Iron Dog like a physical wave.
The Warlord's Warlord math paid off. The thick, riveted naval steel of Narcissus's new armor didn't melt. It didn't buckle.
It glowed.
The heavy steel plating on his chest and arms turned a violent, cherry-red in the intense heat. Steam hissed violently from his hydraulic joints as the internal cooling systems screamed in overdrive.
But he didn't stop.
Narcissus absorbed the inferno, his massive legs whining as he physically pushed through the fire. Behind him, the scavengers held the scrap-metal shields, screaming as the heat blistered their hands, but the wedge held. The fire washed over the sides of the formation, leaving the center untouched.
They were ten feet away.
"Now!" Marcus roared, breaking from the rear of the formation.
He didn't run away. He ran toward the glowing-red giant.
Narcissus let out a deep, mechanical roar. He lunged forward, his hydraulic legs driving him out of the fire.
He slammed his massive iron body directly into the Burner Mech.
The impact was deafening. The sheer, fifty-ton kinetic force of the Dreadnought hit the twenty-ton walker dead center.
The Burner Mech shrieked as its front hydraulic legs buckled. It reared backward, its flamethrower arms flailing wildly, spewing fire into the air.
Narcissus didn't let it recover.
He grabbed the thick, mechanical weapon arms of the walker with his glowing, cherry-red hands. The metal groaned and warped under his terrifying grip.
It was a brutal, grinding wrestling match of steel against steel. The giant and the machine locked together in a shower of sparks and hissing hydraulics.
The Mech was pinned.
But the clone pilot wasn't dead. He frantically reached for a secondary control panel, trying to angle a hidden chest-mounted pulse-cannon directly at Narcissus's head.
The canopy was bulletproof. Marcia's shotgun couldn't penetrate it. The scavengers were too far back to swarm it.
Marcus didn't have nanite-calculated trajectories. He had Warlord grit.
He sprinted straight at Narcissus's broad, glowing back.
He didn't hesitate. He vaulted off a rusted tank trap, his boots slamming into the Dreadnought's cherry-red shoulder plating. The heat instantly melted the rubber soles of his boots, sending a sharp jolt of pain up his legs.
Marcus used the momentum to launch himself through the air.
He flew over the blazing flamethrower arms and landed squarely on the curved, reinforced glass canopy of the Burner Mech.
He grabbed the heavy metal framing with his left hand to steady himself. The metal was scalding hot.
The clone pilot looked up, his eyes widening in shock. He fumbled for his sidearm.
Marcus didn't have a gun. He had a heavy steel combat knife.
He reversed his grip. He didn't try to stab the bulletproof glass.
He raised his arm and brought the heavy steel pommel of the knife down onto the center of the canopy with every ounce of analog rage in his body.
CRACK.
The reinforced glass didn't shatter. But a tiny white spiderweb crack appeared.
The clone pilot raised his pistol inside the cockpit. He aimed at the glass, directly at Marcus's chest.
Marcus didn't flinch. He hit it again. Harder.
CRACK.
The spiderweb spread. His knuckles were bleeding. The heat from the glowing metal frame was searing the skin off his left hand.
"Warlord Warlord!" Marcus roared, his voice tearing from his throat.
He brought the heavy steel pommel down a third time, putting his entire body weight behind the strike.
SMASH.
The reinforced glass caved in. The canopy shattered inward, raining jagged, heavy shards down onto the clone pilot.
The pilot screamed, dropping his pistol, his hands flying up to protect his face.
Marcus didn't give him a second to recover.
He reached through the jagged hole in the canopy. He grabbed the thick black collar of the clone's environmental suit.
With a primal, Warlord roar, Marcus braced his boots against the Mech's chassis and violently hauled the screaming clone upward.
He dragged the pilot out of the cockpit, pulling him through the jagged glass. The shards tore the clone's suit and flesh.
Marcus threw the bleeding pilot backward off the Mech. He fell twenty feet, landing with a sickening crunch in the muddy ash below.
Narcissus released the weapon arms.
The Burner Mech, suddenly pilotless and critically damaged, slumped forward. Its hydraulic legs gave out with a loud hiss.
The massive machine collapsed into the mud, lifeless.
The clearing fell silent, save for the crackle of burning leaves and the heavy, ragged breathing of the Warlord.
Marcus stood on top of the dead machine, his chest heaving. His naval coat was singed. His left hand was badly burned and bleeding. He looked down at his analog weapon. The blade of the combat knife was dull, but the heavy steel pommel had done its job.
The phalanx lowered their scrap-metal shields.
The scavengers stared at the Warlord standing on the downed mechanical beast. They didn't cheer. They were too exhausted, too terrified. But their eyes were wide with absolute, primal respect.
The analog Warlord had won.
Marcia walked up to the side of the downed Mech. She looked up at Marcus.
"You're bleeding," she said quietly.
"I'm alive," Marcus said, wiping sweat and ash from his forehead.
He looked past her.
The heavy, blast-shielded door of the water purification bunker sat undisturbed under the massive oak tree, just fifty feet away. The path was clear.
"Lucilla!" Marcus called out, his voice hoarse. "Front and center."
Lucilla scrambled out from behind the phalanx. She was shaking violently, clutching the datapad to her chest like a life preserver. She looked at the dead clone in the mud, then quickly averted her eyes.
"It's clear," Marcus said, climbing down from the Mech. His melted boots stuck slightly to the metal. "Get to the door. Crack the firewall."
Lucilla nodded, her breath hitching. She hurried toward the heavy steel door of the bunker.
Marcus followed her, his combat knife still drawn. Marcia and Narcissus fell in close behind. The scavengers held the perimeter, their rusted weapons raised toward the burning jungle.
They reached the door. It was massive, secured by a heavy electronic keypad and a thick retinal scanner.
Lucilla knelt in the mud. She pulled a frayed cable from her datapad and began to nervously pry off the access panel on the keypad. Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped her tools twice.
"I... I can do this," Lucilla whispered, desperately trying to calm herself. "The Board uses standard 256-bit encryption on municipal outposts. I just need a minute."
She finally jammed the cable into the exposed port.
Before she could type a single line of code, the intercom speaker mounted above the heavy blast door crackled to life with a loud burst of static.
Lucilla froze.
"That was quite the analog performance, Warlord," a voice said cheerfully through the speaker.
It was Nero.
He didn't sound angry. He sounded out of breath, amused, and terrifyingly close.
Marcus gripped his knife tighter. He stared at the speaker. "Where are you, Nero?"
"Oh, I'm already inside," Nero's voice echoed merrily. "I was watching from the security cameras. The phalanx? Inspired. Truly retro."
Lucilla stared at her datapad in horror.
"Marcus," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The lock... it's not encrypted. He turned the security off."
The massive, heavy blast door of the bunker suddenly hissed. Deep pneumatic locks disengaged with a series of loud, heavy clunks.
Slowly, the thick steel door began to slide open on its own, revealing a dark, cavernous hallway leading deep underground.
"Come on in," Nero invited over the intercom. "The water is fine."
Marcus didn't move. He stared into the dark hallway.
"But do hurry, Emperor," Nero added, his voice dropping to a manic, theatrical whisper. "I left a little present down by the main reservoir. It's going to make your thirty-six-hour clock feel like an absolute luxury."
The intercom clicked off.
The dark, open door of the bunker waited for them like an open mouth.