CHAPTER 211: TOWARDS THE END

The roll came fast and mean, a sideways tilt that tried to make decisions for ankles and wheels and men. Inigo dropped his weight low, one hand on the Black Dragon’s track pad, and let the world have him the way you let surf take you—loose, never limp. The S-60 skated, its spindly carriage legs screaming against glassed stone. The mortar baseplate hopped twice and dug in like a stubborn mule. The Mk 19 slewed, grinning, and waited to be asked again.

"Not a wave," Inigo said through gritted teeth as gravel tried to become ball bearings. "A roll. Fine."

The Lord used the roll like punctuation—palms out, fingers slightly curved, the sigil-ink along each phalanx brightening in sequence as he pushed. The ground obeyed because it remembered whose weight had been teaching it all day.

Inigo rode the tilt three steps downhill, boot soles burning, and hip-checked the S-60’s trail into a chewed slot between two fallen lintels. The gun bit. That was enough. He spun the handwheel, drove the muzzle across the Lord’s midsection by feel and thermal, and palmed an HE-T from the tray.

"Different bite," he muttered, dragging a filthy thumb across the driving band. Bloom—an ugly, old rune, half prayer and half fuse code.

The 57 mm barked. The shell climbed a hair then did what he asked, bursting a meter off the chest. Fragments came down like a steel rain. The cloak-skin flared hard, stuttering on the overload; shards bit into plate bevels, skittered, lodged. The bright seam along the Lord’s jaw flared and then guttered to hold heat where it belonged.

Pleasure lived behind the visor. He leaned into it. "Better," he said, sounding like a man at a tasting booth. "Spice."

"Main course," Inigo said, because sarcasm kept hands honest.

He yanked the Mk 19 back to his hip and walked a short ladder along the giant’s shins. HEDP thumped, then thumped again, and again—three beats that made the ground decide to be vapor in circles the size of horse troughs. The palms drank pressure sideways; two blasts skittered off as if embarrassed; the third bit under the left foot on the heel and insulted balance all the same.

The Lord shifted. Inigo fed the 57 mm another bloom and saw fragments kiss the visor star, bright on thermal like summer hail. He didn’t kid himself; the giant was adapting in real time. So was he.

"Shop," he breathed.

Specialty Rounds — Mortar 120 mm

– WP Smoke (screening) — 8 rds 3,200 Tokens → Buy.

– Illumination — 6 rds 900 Tokens → Buy.

He dropped two WP down the tube fast, hissed a warning to air he hoped would listen, then added an illum behind to backlight the world into hard truth. White phosphorous rolled into thick, hungry curtains. The illum popped, hanging on a thin white string, painting the Lord’s edges in clean contrast. The heat around him made halos in the smoke. The palm-sigils pulsed like a second heart.

Inigo slid—literal—back to the Black Dragon’s breach. His hands were steadier when the big gun was close. He drew a kinetic dart, pressed spine and finish fast and clean, and rammed it home. He didn’t aim for chest or helm. He kept being mean to ankles.

"Down," he told inevitability, and squeezed.

The Black Dragon barked thunder again. The dart crossed smoke like a truth, punched plate at the ankle joint, and took a coin of armor with it as it bored through. The Lord dropped to one knee for one breath, head tilted—listening to pain with that same ardent curiosity.

"Yes," he breathed. "Say it again."

Inigo made a face. "You’re welcome."

He shouldered the Carl G, slammed in HEDP this time, and sent it low at the planted knee while the giant’s weight was still committing. The round hit, exploded into angry gravel, and lodged fragments in every seam that had the bad luck to be near. The palm came down and shoved, but the shove found only smoke and grit and honest lack of leverage.

"Enough of your fun," Inigo said, and made himself ugly.

Missiles → ATGM

– TOW-2B Aero (Overflight Top-Attack) — 4 missiles 16,000 Tokens → Buy.

The ITAS screen flickered. The thermal overlay showed the Lord as a white anvil inside a furnace. Inigo lashed the tripod to the S-60’s trail with a ratchet strap and leaned into the grip.

"Walk," he told the wire like an old dog, and squeezed.

The missile slid out slow and then remembered to be mean. It flew over the Lord, not into him, and two explosively formed penetrators snapped downward from the belly in a staggered punch. Pressure walls tried to cup them and failed; the warheads bit from above where the plate had to be thinner or not there. The first EFP punched the crown seam near the visor. The second kissed the top of the shoulder and spat copper into the armpit like a rude hand.

The Lord laughed. It wasn’t right. It tripped something in Inigo’s chest that wanted to be a growl. The brute was—gods help them both—enjoying himself.

"Again," the helm invited.

"Fine," Inigo said, because refusing would taste like fear, and sent the second 2B to bracket the other shoulder. The twin penetrators bit. The Lord staggered a fraction and stepped into it as if waltzing into pain’s lead.

"Next," the Lord asked, greedy as a boy in a candy house.

"Next you get dessert," Inigo said.

Direct Fire → Field Guns

– M119 105 mm Howitzer — 12 HE, 6 VT, 4 Smoke 55,000 Tokens → Buy.

The 105 slammed onto its trails as if it had always been there. He cranked traverse by feel, kicked the spade with a heel, rammed a VT fuze HE into the breech, and scrawled bloom and cone along the side because sometimes you bully a blast into the shape you need.

He set the fuze tall and mean and fired.

The VT did its job, bursting ten meters above the Lord’s head. Cone obeyed and drove fragments inward instead of down. It was mean geometry. The cloak-skin dimmed and bowed; the visor’s star flashed as something metal inside met something sharper than pride. The palm pressed and bled the cone sideways, but not before it spoke in the Lord’s ear with a handful of whispers named shard.

"Clever," the brute murmured, almost tender. "I like you angry."

Inigo ignored the compliment, because survival is learning which words you can’t afford. He loaded another VT and another and walked them around the giant like a ring of bells a choir would envy. Each burst shaved edges, forced adjustments, stole the kind of lazy step that makes big men feel immortal.

The Lord’s palm cut the next 105 shell’s path with a small, dismissive gesture; the round bent into a building carcass and burst apologetically. Fine. Inigo had other ways.

"Shop," he hissed.

Small Arms → Machine Guns

– M2HB .50 on low tripod — 2 sets + 800 rds 16,000 Tokens → Buy.

He slammed one low behind an overturned cart, threw the lid off an ammo can, ran the belt through with a fingernail’s two-word benediction—line, bite—and slapped the cover closed. He dragged the second to the other side of the lane and did the same, creating a V of cranky arguments at ankle height.

"Talk to him," he told the Brownings, and worked both butterflies like a man playing unpopular organ hymns.

.50 slugs stitched the Lord’s shins and knees. Most sparked on bevels; enough found the grooves fragment had started and started their own. The giant didn’t hurry—a kind of compliment. He stepped into the V, lifted a palm to each stream, and smoothed both lines of .50 down into hiss and light.

He was busy for a half breath. Inigo spent it without thinking.