The Thirteen Knight

Chapter 21- The Art of Stumbling

I spent the entire night relearning how to walk.

It was 3:00 AM. My dorm room was dark, lit only by the streetlights filtering through the blinds. Tal was snoring softly in his bunk, muttering something about card tricks in his sleep.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door.

Step. Pivot. Shift weight.

I watched myself. My natural instinct was to lead with my left shoulder—a defensive habit from using the Apostate Bracer. My weight naturally settled on the balls of my feet, ready to spring. That was the Knight’s stance. That was the stance Commander Vane was hunting.

I needed to break it.

I took a roll of duct tape from my tool bag. I wrapped it tight around my left knee, restricting the joint just enough to be annoying. Then, I took a small, sharp pebble from the potted plant on the windowsill and shoved it into my left boot, right under the heel.

I took a step.

Wince.

I favored my right leg immediately. My shoulder slumped. The fluid grace of the Knight was gone, replaced by a jagged, uneven lurch.

I looked at the mirror. I looked tired, broken, and uncoordinated.

"Perfect," I whispered.

I wasn't a warrior anymore. I was a cripple with a wrench.

By 0600, I was back in the Sub-Basement.

The lab was buzzing with activity. The Aethelgard Chassis stood in the center of the room, still hooked up to cooling hoses. The air tasted metallic, a side effect of the Wrathguard heart pulsing inside the metal chest.

Professor Kael was on the gantry, directing a crane.

"Phase Two, Mr. Royce," Kael greeted me without looking down. "Weaponization. We are not building a shield. We are building a hammer."

The crane lowered a massive object onto the table next to the robot.

It was a cannon. But not a modern smooth-bore. It looked like a medieval siege mortar forged from black iron, inscribed with glowing red runes. It was ugly, heavy, and radiated heat.

"The Sun-Eater Array," Kael introduced. "It condenses mana into a thermal lance. Usually, it requires a squad of five fire mages to operate. We’re bolting it to the Chassis’s right shoulder."

He pointed at me.

"Get up there. Secure the mount. And Chase?"

I looked up, doing my best to look pathetic as I shifted my weight off the pebble in my boot. "Sir?"

"Don't drop it. It costs more than your life."

I grabbed my tool belt. I made a show of struggling with the ladder, hauling myself up with exaggerated effort from my right arm.

I reached the shoulder of the mech. The heat from the chest cavity was intense. The demon heart was idling, but I could feel its hunger.

I guided the massive cannon into place. It was heavy—easily three hundred pounds. The Knight could have lifted it with one hand. Chase Royce had to use a chain hoist and a lot of grunting.

As I tightened the bolts, I felt eyes on me.

I glanced at the observation deck. Commander Vane was there.

She wasn't looking at the robot. She was watching me. She held a datapad, her thumb hovering over the screen. I knew what she was doing. She was logging my movements.

Don't slip, I told myself. Or rather, do slip.

I reached for a wrench with my left hand, then "remembered" and clumsily switched to my right. I let the wrench slip from my grease-slicked fingers.

Clang.

It bounced off the metal decking and fell to the floor below.

"Sorry!" I yelled, flinching.

On the balcony, Vane lowered her datapad slightly. She looked annoyed. Good. The Knight didn't drop weapons. The Knight didn't flinch.

"Secure that hardware, Royce!" Kael barked. "We initiate the firing test in ten minutes."

I finished bolting the cannon. My hands were shaking—partly from the act, partly from the sheer proximity to the demon heart.

"Clear the rig!"

I scrambled down the ladder, limping heavily as my heel struck the floor. I joined the other assistants behind the blast glass.

"Test Subject Alpha, enter the cockpit," Kael ordered.

My blood ran cold. Test Subject?

A side door opened. Two golems dragged a man into the room. He wore a prisoner's jumpsuit—orange, stained, and ill-fitting. He was a mage; I could feel the faint hum of his mana. But he looked broken. A convict from the Dungeons.

"Please," the man begged, digging his heels into the tile. "Don't put me in that thing. I can feel it eating the air!"

"Service guarantees sentence reduction," Kael said coldly. "Get in."

The golems shoved him up the ladder and forced him into the small, cramped cockpit located in the Chassis’s upper torso, just above the heart.

The hatch slammed shut.

"Interface active," Kael commanded.

The Aethelgard Chassis groaned. The orange lights flared.

Inside the cockpit, the man screamed. Even through the heavy metal and the glass, we could hear it.

"Mana levels spiking," an assistant read from a monitor. "The heart is... it's reacting to his fear, sir. It's trying to bond with his nervous system."

"Let it," Kael said, his eyes glued to the data. "Fire the Sun-Eater."

The massive cannon on the robot's shoulder began to glow. A high-pitched whine filled the room. The runes on the barrel turned white-hot.

The robot’s arm raised, jerky and spasm-filled, aiming at a thick wall of enchanted concrete at the far end of the firing range.

BOOM.

The sound was earth-shattering. A beam of concentrated thermal energy, thick as a tree trunk, erupted from the cannon.

It hit the concrete wall and didn't just break it; it vaporized it. Molten slag splashed against the containment shields. The heat was so intense I could feel it through the blast glass.

"Output at 300%!" Kael shouted, ecstatic. "It works! It works!"

But inside the robot, the screaming had stopped.

The Chassis stood there, smoking. The cannon barrel was glowing red.

"Subject status?" Kael asked.

"Vital signs... negative," the assistant whispered. "Heart failure. Massive cerebral hemorrhage."

The mage was dead. The interface had fried his brain.

"Pity," Kael muttered, jotting down a note. "The insulation is still insufficient for standard mages. The mana feedback loop is too violent."

He turned to Vane on the balcony.

"Commander, the weapon is functional. But the pilot problem remains. We need someone with higher resistance. Or..."

He glanced at me.

Vane looked from the smoking robot to the dead man inside it. Then she looked at me, huddled in the back, nursing my "injured" leg.

"Or we stop using mages," Vane said, her voice amplified by the intercom.

She walked down the stairs from the balcony, entering the main lab floor. The air was still hot.

"Get the body out," she ordered the golems. She didn't even blink at the corpse.

She walked over to me. I stiffened, keeping my weight on my right leg, letting my shoulders slump.

"You installed the weapon, Royce?"

"Yes, Ma'am," I said, keeping my eyes on her boots.

"It held," she noted. "Despite your... clumsiness."

"I tightened the bolts to spec, Ma'am. I just... I'm not used to the height."

Vane walked a slow circle around me.

"I watched the footage of the Knight again this morning," she said softly. "He moves like water. He is ambidextrous, but favors the left for power strikes."

She kicked my left boot. Hard.

The pebble dug into my heel. I yelped and stumbled, grabbing a workbench to stay upright. It wasn't entirely acting; it hurt like hell.

"Ow! What the—"

"You have a limp," she observed, her eyes narrowing. "New?"

"I twisted it yesterday," I lied, rubbing the ankle. "Running down the stairs during the attack. I tripped."

Vane stared at me for a long, agonizing silence. She was looking for a crack in the story. She was looking for the predator inside the prey.

But all she saw was a greasy mechanic wincing in pain, terrified of a woman in a uniform.

"Pathetic," she finally whispered.

She turned back to Kael.

"The Chassis is approved for field testing. Tomorrow. We're taking it to the Perimeter."

"Tomorrow?" Kael blinked. "But we don't have a pilot. The dampeners aren't ready."

Vane smiled. It was a smile that promised violence.

"We don't need a pilot to walk it, Professor. We just need a transport crew. We're going to use it as bait."

"Bait?"

"There's a Rift opening in the North Woods," Vane said. "A big one. We're going to park the Chassis there. The demon heart will attract the swarm like moths to a flame."

She looked at me again.

"And Mr. Royce will accompany the unit as the lead mechanic. If the Chassis breaks down in the field, Chase... you fix it. Or you get eaten."

My heart hammered against my ribs.

Field test. North Woods. A live Rift.

And I was supposed to keep a demon-powered bomb running while surrounded by monsters, with Vane watching my every move.

"Understood, Ma'am," I whispered.

"Good," she said. "Dismissed."

I limped toward the exit. Every step on the pebble sent a jolt of pain up my leg.

But as I reached the elevator, I allowed myself a tiny, invisible smile.

She bought the limp. She bought the clumsiness.

Chase Royce was safe.

But tomorrow, in the North Woods, the Apostate Knight might have to come out to play. And this time, there wouldn't be any walls to hide behind.