On the fourth day in the “Bear’s Gap” cave, I realized that mathematics is the only religion that doesn’t lie. Gods may promise salvation, mages may promise purification, but only numbers honestly tell you when you’re going to die.

  I sat on the cold stone, leaning back against Zeno. His frame was barely warm—the reactor was in “smolder” mode, maintaining only minimal current in the circuits. My right shoulder no longer burned. It had gone numb. Ephrem had somehow cleaned the wound of pus and torn fabric, using boiling water and some bitter root. Now there was a dark crust, into which the steel mounting pins sank.

  The prosthetic hung uselessly on me. Without the copper coils we’d gutted to revive Zeno, it was just a complicated iron stick weighing seven kilograms. It pulled me to the right, forcing my spine into an arch.

  “Eat,” Ephrem handed me a piece of fish roasted over coals. Small, bony, caught in the creek below the slope. “This is the last one. Tomorrow, we either eat snow or move on.”

  I took the fish with my left hand. My fingers barely obeyed.

  “Zeno,” I called.

  “Yes, Iron,” the Golem’s voice was clearer now, though a metallic rattle remained. “Energy balance: 4.2%. Stationary operation estimate: 48 hours. March estimate: 12 hours.”

  “Three hundred forty kilometers to the City of Bridges,” I chewed the dry fish. It felt like shards of glass stuck in my throat. “If we do twenty kilometers a day, that’s seventeen days. We don’t have food for seventeen days. And you don’t have charge.”

  “Logical solution: search for alternative carbon source,” Zeno slowly turned his head. His orange eye blinked. “My combustion chamber can process charcoal or peat. Efficiency drops by 60%, but it will allow motion to continue.”

  Ephrem, tossing the last bits of wood into the tiny fire, chuckled.

  “So he’s going to eat coal. And my companions? One eats iron guts, the other counts numbers all day. And what am I supposed to do?”

  “You—keep us on course,” I looked at the old man. “You’re the only one who knows these mountains without a map.”

  Ephrem’s face darkened. He stood, approached the cave entrance, and stared long at the snow-capped firs below.

  “When I was fishing today, I saw a mark,” he said without turning. “Fresh notch on a pine. A ‘Black Cross.’”

  I froze. Even Zeno seemed to stop humming.

  “Order trackers?” I asked.

  “The very same. Mages don’t wander into these woods—they fear dirtying their feet. They hire those born in the forest, cross-blessed with a knife in their teeth. These guys don’t work for prayers, but for gold. If they found the sled by the creek—they’ll be here by sunset.”

  [Status: 8%. Threat analysis: High. Detection probability at current position: 89%.]

  “We need to leave now,” I tried to stand. My shoulder screamed a deep, dull pain. “Zeno, march mode.”

  “Iron, my left knee is blocked due to mechanical servo damage. Mobility is limited,” the Golem slowly began to rise, pressing his hands against the cave walls. Dust and small stones fell from the ceiling. “I will use my arms as additional support. Energy consumption will increase by 15%.”

  “I don’t care about consumption. We can’t stay here.”

  Ephrem quickly packed our meager belongings into a sack. He hid the Inquisitor’s map under his coat. I looked at my right arm. Useless steel.

  “Ephrem, strap it to my belt,” I pointed to the prosthetic. “So it doesn’t swing. It messes with my balance.”

  The old man complied silently. He fastened my arm with a leather strap, pressing it to my ribs. I felt crooked, but at least I could stand without tipping sideways.

  The cave exit greeted us with an icy gust of wind. The frost wasn’t severe—around ten degrees—but the creek’s humidity made our clothes stiffen instantly.

  Zeno went first.

  It was a terrifying sight. The enormous black machine, once moving with terrifying grace, now resembled a wounded beast. He threw his long arms forward, pressed his fists into the snow, and dragged his damaged leg along. Every step was accompanied by a screech that sounded louder than thunder in the mountain silence.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Can’t we be quieter?” Ephrem hissed, glancing around.

  “Metal-on-metal friction in the jammed joint produces acoustic noise at 80 decibels,” Zeno answered impassively. “No lubrication. Surfaces deformed.”

  “We’re a bell tower to those trackers,” the old man muttered, lifting me under my left arm.

  We moved along the slope, sticking to dense undergrowth. The snow was deep. Zeno sank waist-deep, forcing him to dig himself out with his hands. Sparks flew from his joints—residual energy in the circuits struggling against mechanical resistance.

  “Stop,” I raised my hand.

  We’d covered only a kilometer, but I was already gasping. The fever hadn’t gone—it merely lay in wait, ready to strike again.

  “Zeno,” I came closer. “Snowshoes.”

  “Clarify request, Iron.”

  “You’re putting too much load per unit area. You’re sinking. Ephrem, chop some fir branches. Make shields.”

  The old man understood immediately. While I sat on a fallen log, trying to calm my trembling knees, he quickly chopped branches and, using leftover ropes from the sled, made two large crude fans. We tied them to Zeno’s feet and fists.

  “Analysis… contact area increased by 3.2 times. Snow penetration depth reduced to ten centimeters. Efficiency improved,” Zeno’s eyepiece flickered slightly brighter.

  “Continue movement.”

  We walked for four hours. The sun vanished behind the ridge, and the mountains instantly turned a deathly blue. Shadows grew long and sharp. At one point, Ephrem stopped and crouched, pulling me down.

  “Quiet…” he exhaled.

  I followed his finger. On the top of the neighboring hill, about three kilometers away, a light flashed. Not a fire. The light was cold, piercing blue. It blinked three times and went out.

  “Signal fire,” I whispered. “They have a magical compass. They’re tracking our heat signature.”

  “Iron, my core emits a thermal signature that cannot be concealed in this climate,” Zeno froze, a dark rock amid the snow. “They see us on the Order’s thermal maps.”

  “No time to rest,” I felt something click inside me. Fear was gone, replaced by cold calculation—the same that always helped me in the Zero Sector.

  “If we cross this ridge,” Ephrem pointed to a steep, near-vertical slope ahead, “we’ll reach the Wind Valley. There’s always a blizzard. It will hide our trail, and the snow will cover Zeno’s tracks in ten minutes. But the climb… boy, you won’t make it. And he…” the old man nodded at the Golem, “…he’ll tumble down.”

  I looked at Zeno.

  “Can you do it?”

  “Probability of successful ascent at current energy and damage levels: 14.8%. Probability of critical system failure: 85.2%.”

  “Better to die on the climb than on an Inquisition pyre,” I approached the Golem. “Hoist me on your shoulders. Only working shoulder counts.”

  Zeno slowly lowered a manipulator. His cold, rigid fingers wrapped around my body. He lifted me onto his neck, directly above the reactor compartment, where faint, barely perceptible heat radiated. I clutched his neck with my left arm, pressing my cheek to his armor.

  “Let’s go, Ephrem. To the Wind Valley.”

  I will remember this climb my whole life, if I live to old age. It was chaos: metal screeching, Ephrem’s ragged breathing, and the howling wind growing stronger with every meter.

  Zeno clawed into the slope. His “snowshoes” made of branches had long since broken; now he simply pounded his fists into the icy ground beneath the snow. I felt the vibration of each movement travel through my bones. Something howled and groaned inside him—mechanisms pushed to the limit, extracting every last amp from the half-dead core.

  [Warning: Core temperature critical. Threat of wiring meltdown.]

  [Skill “The Will to Live”: Active. Extending cognitive function…]

  “We… almost…” Ephrem crawled beside us, clutching roots. His face was a mask of frost and sweat.

  When we reached the ridge, the wind hit us so hard Zeno nearly toppled backward. I gripped his neck tighter. Before us lay a void—the white, screaming abyss of the Wind Valley. Nothing was visible beyond an outstretched arm. Snow lashed horizontally, blinding, choking.

  “Down!—shouted I, over the roar. “Go!”

  Zeno didn’t climb down. He simply slid. We tumbled down the slope—a pile of iron, an old man, and a boy. The world became a centrifuge of snow and pain.

  When it stopped, I lay on something hard. Zeno lay next to me, his “face” buried in a drift. His eyepiece was dark.

  “Ephrem!” I tried to shout, but only a rasp escaped.

  “Here I am…” A hand appeared from the snow nearby. The old man emerged, shaking and coughing. “Alive. Ribs seem intact.”

  I crawled to Zeno.

  “Hey… turn on. That’s an order.”

  Silence. The wind howled above us, rolling waves of snow. We were in the heart of the storm. In this blizzard, no one could find us—but neither could we find our way.

  Then Zeno’s eyepiece flickered. Weakly. Dimly.

  “Energy… 0.4%,” the speaker whispered. “Systems… entering… standby mode…”

  “No, no, no!” I started pounding on his armor. “You can’t now! We need shelter!”

  “Iron…” Zeno’s voice became strange. Almost human. “Ahead… five hundred meters… stable… thermal anomaly. Cave… or… artificial structure. Follow… my… lighthouse…”

  From his chest emerged a thin, barely visible laser beam, cutting through the blizzard, pointing the way.

  “Ephrem, grab his arm!” I jumped up, forgetting the pain. “We have to get him there!”

  “You’re insane, kid?! Four hundred kilos! In this wind!” Ephrem looked at me like I was mad.

  “He brought us here! Now it’s our turn! Pull!”

  We grabbed his manipulators. I pulled with my left arm, bracing my feet. Ephrem growled, leaning all his weight. We were like ants trying to move a mountain.

  A centimeter. Another.

  We hauled him through the storm, guided by the fading laser. Consciousness slipped away. I couldn’t feel my legs. Only the goal remained. The lighthouse. Five hundred meters of mathematical hell.

  When the beam finally died, we hit a wall. But it wasn’t rock. It was a wall of smooth metal, covered with centuries of ice.

  “What is this…” Ephrem touched the surface.

  I lifted my head. Above us, vanishing into the white mist, towered a colossal support. Rusty, yet still mighty.

  “This isn’t a cave, Ephrem,” I leaned on the metal. “It’s a bridge. The First Bridge of the Precursors.”

  We had found it—or it had found us. In the heart of the storm, on the edge of life and death, we stumbled upon the remnants of the old world.

  I slid along the wall beside motionless Zeno. I had no strength left to even close my eyes. The last thing I saw before darkness took me was Ephrem, panting heavily, sitting beside us and placing his calloused hand on my head.

  “We made it, kid,” he whispered. “We made it.”