NovaForge Read Online Free PDF Page A

will not. You cannot have me.” He jolted and then grabbed his weapon. Blue light charged up the gun and over his limbs as he leveled the weapon at an empty part of the street, blasting a hole in a structure with a massive burst of electricity.
    A second later, a contingent of his mercenary warriors turned into the street and charged with swords drawn to attack Julieth and Ivanus.
    “No! You cannot have me!” The cyborg leveled his weapon at the mercenaries and fired again and again, disintegrating them and spreading the remains of their bodies over the street. He staggered backwards. “Who are you?” he asked Julieth in panic, aiming the weapon at her. “Where is Samuel?”
    Julieth was taken aback. The cyborg had seemingly helped them. “The great bishop is far away from us,” she told him while keeping her arrow trained on his forehead. “He sent you to destroy our city.”
    “No… it can’t be,” the borg said. “I was there. I was so close. He must have entered my mind.”
    “You are in Kaskal. Do you mean my people harm?” she asked.
    “No.” He lowered his weapon, a look of exhaustion and loss in his eyes.
    This could all be a ruse, Julieth thought, unwilling to lower her arrow. “Then put down your weapon so that I can restrain you.”
    The borg leveled the weapon at her again. “A warrior is not controlled.”
    Ivanus had come to, staggering in their direction, his sword and shield braced before him. As he reached them he laid his sword on the ground and reached a hand out. “May I touch you?”
    The borg did not answer, but did not move to avoid Ivanus.
    Ivanus placed a hand on his skin, closing his eyes and then opening them. “He has neither a good nor an evil heart. I can sense that in him. And somehow, because there are essences in us both, I believe I can sense he means what he says.”
    “Then I will trust you as well.” The borg put his gun before him, and then kicked it forward with his massive mechanical leg. “I am Riad,” he spoke. “I attacked Samuel’s citadel, and had him in my sights before falling to darkness and awakening here.”
    Ivanus picked up his sword and came near Julieth as she landed on the cobble street. Bayne stood behind them, watching intently. The sounds of battle reemerged in their ears.
    “You can trust him,” Ivanus said. “I can see that he will let you restrain him.”
    “Are you positive?” she asked, her arrow ready to loose at the borg’s skull.
    “Yes.”
    Riad held his hands behind his back and turned. The gears moving in the wrist of his cybernetic hand gave her pause.
    Julieth reached back to a pocket on her quiver, removing a silver tube and pressing it against the borg’s flesh wrist. Instantly a chain of light circled his wrists, tightly binding them together. She looked to Ivanus. “Leave the sword and take his gun. We need to move him deeper in the city, to the prison, so that we can continue to fight. Bayne cannot remain here, either.” The light chain was a piece of technology passed down generation after generation in her family from the time before the meteor ages ago. Most technology was gone, but a few pieces like this still remained. This small artefact had served her well.
    “Wait,” the borg’s metallic voice spoke. He slowly turned to face them. “I can be much more useful as an ally than a prisoner.”
    “You led them here.” Julieth re-aimed her arrow. “We can’t trust you.”
    “You could keep my gun and energy mines. That weapon could destroy me with a few blasts.” He eyed the gun in Ivanus’s hands. “With just my limbs I could be of use.”
    Julieth looked to Ivanus. “What do you think? Do we trust him?”
    Ivanus closed his eyes for a moment, as if sensing something. “There are many of the mercenary army remaining. He would greatly increase our odds. I am not a warrior, and I do not know about you, but here we have a man who seems to know war.”
    BOOM! A loud blast rang from close by and smoke