The weather was miserable, the ceaseless pouring rain from the iron grey skies continued unabated, which among other things had made the nominally dirt roads into rivers of mud. The cargo tracks were trudging along with some effort while the odd agrav, as usual, floated above completely unaffected. The kriegmeisters were somewhere in between the two, their feet sinking into the mud but their height making it not really an issue. The shards in his mind blabbering about symbolism and incoherent rage, almost as if ripping straight from Turiac babbling.

The world is really not that complicated. There weren’t paved roads everywhere leading to all the nowhere simply because there’s not much of a point. The Agrav caravans don’t need them, and there’s not much reason for the lesser vehicles to wander off so far from their home garages.

Which sucks all the more for fringe cases such as the one he’s part of now. For most estates, war tithe and obligations are done by the cream of the crop, the finest sally forth on their magnificent kriegmeisters and supported by their agravs. The Clarke family on the other hand, was not sophisticated enough to afford those standard gear in the quantities as befitting their social position.

Thus all the tracked vehicles currently wallowing in the endless mud. Something simple enough to be produced even without the secrets of the ancients, and thus befitting the status of the unblessed and unwashed masses. So for a supposed aristocratic family, it’s not a good showing no matter how one slices it.

Yet despite all that, a little piece in the back of his mind still felt a shred of pride. It was through his efforts that the estate was able to scrounge up the necessary forces for this war tithe, though he had to admit that his efforts in that were mostly nagging Antony and the other guys in charge of farming to make more and bigger tractors and other such tracked vehicles.

It was degrading work, and the greater productivity from the results of their efforts weren’t really in anything that could be traded for better or more socially useful things. After all, there’s only so many basic things that the local and regional economy needs, and moreover there are some people that are just too foreign to be trusted. But the supervisor and the rest of them indulged the young spare of the Clarke family, as far as eccentric hobbies went, expanding lowly vehicle production was almost benign, certainly harmless.

Then came the call to war. For various reasons both sensible and otherwise, the elder Clarke didn’t want to send the best of the estate to what’ll most likely just be another border conflict that’ll only bleed out previous resources and skilled warfighters. So lucky for him he and his toys were being sent to the conflict zone, the bare minimum of a tithe to fulfill social and political obligations.

It was also a testing of the waters, as in better times such a force being sent would have been insulting. Peasant material levels of equipment are at best a last ditch defense, if even that. After all, change in the lordship means little in the day to day lives for most, regardless of how that change occurred.

The sudden screams of a rocket, shooting dangerously past the lead agrav, snapped Walter out of his internal monologue. The convoy promptly grounded to a halt, the hissings of the various machinery almost as if the vehicles themselves were glad of taking a break from their trek. The buzz of comm chatter talking about the rocket quickly dwindled into silence as large figures came out of the woods in front of them.

Those figures, of what must have once been kriegmeisters, now more shambling husks than knights of mechanized might, patched all over with grime covered scrap, yet still deadly all the same, as their warning shot had proved.

‘Bandits.’ Walter thought to himself, knowing that similar thoughts are in the minds of everyone in the convoy. Though the term bandits wasn’t exactly the correct term either. Actual bandits as popularly imagined would never be able to acquire the necessary tools and skills to maintain those things, even in their disheveled state, something that those popular fiction also tend to downplay. If anything, there’s a sliding scale from desperate bands of marauders to hired goons of regional lords… despite the shabbiness of their mechas, these bandits were probably closer to the latter than the former. There’s a rich patron behind them somewhere...

“Surrender your wares, you filthy rabble.” An arrogant voice boomed over the unsecured waveset. “You know the law, the tolls must be paid.”

“This is Walter Clarke, of the Marques of Creeksenville. We are on a mission of utmost importance in support of the war effort.” Walter said, mustering all the confidence he would find in his voice even as he discreetly passed the order for everyone to click off the safeties of their weapons. There are worse fates than dying in a hopeless fight, after all.

“Ha! With this rubble of a trash heap?” There was more than disdain in the voice, but then again even outright mockery was to be expected. “It won’t even be worth the effort to hold a runt like you for ransom.” The words were barely over the airwaves as the lead bandit kriegmeister fired its main cannon.

The general purpose HE round slammed into the upper leg unit of Walter’s much smaller kriegmeister, instantly shredding the complex machinery and sending the whole thing crashing into the thick mud, which thankfully cushioned the fall, if only a little.

The forest promptly exploded in a cacophony of violence as everyone fired everything they had. The tracked vehicles in the convoy, armed with little more than simple autocannons on turrets with equally outdated gear, fought in what ways then could. The thing with bandits of the ambushing kind is that they tend to not take prisoners, and in this case, when even the possibility of ransoming the nobility is out of the question, dying while fighting became a far more practical choice. A choice made for them sure, but for those who never knew of a different world, it’s a moot point.

Thus armed with weapons more suited for wildlife control, the convoy was slowly getting shredded by the bandits as they shot vehicle after vehicle, taking them out with a sadistic leisure all the while shrugging off the few shots that landed on them. From his wrecked mech Walter could only watch helplessly as everything seemingly burns into the sea of mud, making graphic his failure as a member of the Clarke, and as a human being in general. About the only saving grace was that some of the vehicles were managing to crawl their way into the surrounding woods. Still an overall low chance of survival given the nature of things, but better than nothing. All the while the few small kriegmeisters of the convoy fight a futile rearguard action, to buy precious seconds with their blood.

Then suddenly the lead bandit kriegmeister stopped in mid motion, an explosion rocked from its back. As the smoke cleared the neat hole punched through the main body. In the following seconds time itself seemed to have slowed as the now crippled mecha first stumbled, then collapsed onto itself as the mass sunk into the mud. Even as it fell more shots rang out, and in a handful of minutes the rest of the bandits joined their leader, wrecked and destroyed in the river of mud. The few bandit pilots who managed to bail out of their ruined mechas attempted to flee, but were quickly stuck in the same mud and soon cut down by the now vengeful track drivers.

Soon the sounds of combat died down, replaced with a silence. The silence of shock, of exhaustion. The faint smell of gunfire and scorched metal hangs in the trees nearby, while tension hangs in the air itself: after all, somebody or something took out the bandits as easily as those same bandits had been taking them out… There are damn good reasons why large chunks of the forests were still not tamed, even centuries after their rebirth since the End of Days.

Just as Walter managed to kick open the hatch of his wrecked machine and poked his head out he saw it: a large, slender, yet curiously misshapen kriegmeister lugging a massive long range rifle.

The lanky mecha spoke (or rather, the pilot inside spoke through it). “If this is the reinforcement being promised then we are truly forsaken...”

And Walter couldn’t disagree: it was true, they couldn’t even defend themselves against a pack of bandits.

“Well,” The stranger continued. “I suppose that’s part of my sin too.” The mecha turned directly at Walter. “Sorry that you got dragged into this, and what’s to come, but such is fate.”

Walter continued his silence, the continuous pouring rain falling on him a reminder of his failures, and the burdens he still must bear.

After all, duty spares no one.