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  A squeal of strained metal echoed across the field. The inch-high figures covered their ears. The screech reached up to the crevasse and made them flinch.

  The giant sat up.

  The chains went slack. The bulldozers lurched ahead. A moment later the links were taut again.

  Talos leaned forward, adjusted its legs, and rose.

  As a graduate student, Kraft had seen the Colossi of Memnon and the massive statues of Rameses at Abu Simbel, and the bronze titan stood over all of them. The massive feet adjusted with the sound of a small earthquake. Talos stared out across the field, a blank expression on a not-quite human face. The chin was too round, the nose too sharp, the lips too thin. Beneath the lines of its sculpted helmet, the over-large eyes had the vacant gaze of a lobotomy patient.

  Steel plates had been welded across its chest and shoulders. Others had been added around its feet and shins. Bare beams and struts across its body showed where more would go.

  A swastika on a red background decorated each shoulder plate.

  Talos took three lurching steps, shaking the field with each one. The chains dropped away. Through the gaps in the head, Kraft could see the pilot pulling and pushing at the controls like a railroad engineer. The bronze and steel giant swayed like a drunk trying to find his center of gravity. Drivers jumped nervously from the bulldozers at its feet.

  Then it took five confident steps, its arms at its sides, each one covering at least sixty feet. It turned around to face the camp. Applause and cheers came from the Germans below. Another groan of metal and gears echoed across the plain, and the giant raised its right arm with its thick fingers stretched out and flat. It earned more cheers and a few honks from the fuel truck drivers.

  Zaimis muttered something. He shuffled toward the front of the crevasse to get a better view. A stone shifted under his boot, and then another. He tried to slide his foot away and set a hand down to steady the delicate array of rocks and dirt.

  A trio of stones, each one no bigger than a golf ball, slipped free and bounced down the hillside. Then a football-sized one dropped away from the mouth of the crevasse and crashed downward. The noise echoed across the plain.

  The giant’s head snapped around. A smooth, quick movement. Its eyes looked warm and red in the dawn sunlight.

  “Oh, no,” whispered Kraft.

  Talos raised its left arm. The four cannons around its left fist let out a clack. An instant of perfect silence followed.

  Carter shoved Kraft, knocking him behind a boulder.

  The cliffside shattered around them, a chaotic symphony of noise that drowned out all thoughts. Carter turned to tackle Zaimis and the resistance fighter vanished, replaced by a cloud of gristle and red mist that the furious winds tore away. The other side of the crevasse exploded, and the blast of rocks hurled Carter across the wedge-like space.

  The boulder in front of Kraft shook like a terrified child. The floor trembled beneath him. The downpour of rounds stopped for a moment, then slammed into the hillside again before he had a chance to organize the few thoughts he had.

  The quivering floor began to tilt. His protective boulder began to sink and lean. The gravel and stones composing the floor tried to slip away from the relentless hammering. It drifted, slid, and then threw itself out of the crevasse, taking the boulder and Kraft with it.

  The boulder, a good four feet across, bounced down the hillside toward the Germans. Kraft slid down the slope into a bush a few yards below the crevasse. Dust and dirt and gravel from the small landslide pelted him, coated him, knocked him free of the bush, and spun him down to a second one. It tore free from the hillside but only went a few yards before crashing into a third—an old, gnarled thing closer to a tree in size and girth.

  A rock the size of a baseball grazed his head, tore his heavy cap away, and made the world spin. He slumped forward against the small tree as the thunder above him stopped.

  Kraft shook his head and ignored the sparks and fireworks it set off through his skull. He reached up and explored his scalp where the rock had hit. Wet, but still solid. And most of his hair still seemed to be there so it couldn’t be a huge wound.

  The ground trembled, setting off two tiny slides of dust and grit as Talos moved forward. Kraft had slid further than he’d thought, almost halfway down the hill, and now the bronze and steel giant loomed over him. Its burning eyes stared up at what was left of the crevasse.

  It wasn’t a trick of the sunlight, he realized. The giant’s eyes glowed like hot coals in a furnace. The air in front of them shimmered from the heat.

  Kraft held his breath. Fought back the cough in his throat, the stinging itch of his wound. The ache of a twisted finger that might be broken. The dust and grit had half-covered him, the tree and uprooted bush hid the rest. If his camouflage held, if he didn’t move, he had to believe the giant couldn’t see him.

  The air burned in his lungs, and he told himself it was no different than the faculty pool. He held the second-place record for time underwater. He had, anyway. The water had lost its appeal since he’d met Carter, and he hadn’t been to the pool in months.

  But he could still hold his breath for a hair over three minutes.

  The giant’s gaze swept back and forth across the hillside.

  Down below, one of the black-clad German officers jogged to catch up with Talos. A soldier hobbled behind him, lugging a portable radio pack. The officer leaned his head back and shouted up at the pilot.

  Talos stepped back from the base of the hill and turned in the officer’s direction. The chin leaned down with a rattle and squeal. From his angle, Kraft could see the pilot lurching forward, yanking hard on the levers.

  The officer leaped back to avoid the shifting feet, then yelled up at the cockpit again. He snatched the microphone from the radio pack and barked commands into it. He glared up at the giant.

  The pilot pulled at levers. He yelled out, almost screamed, in desperation. His voice echoed inside the head.

  The left arm swung down. The officer shouted another command into the microphone.

  Orange light—furnace light—flared in the cockpit and ended the pilot’s screams.

  The cannons spoke as one, a single burst that reduced the Nazi officer, the soldier, and the radio pack, to scraps in a smoking crater at the giant’s feet.

  Talos straightened its head and turned to look at the camp. A few wisps of smoke trailed from the gaps in its head. The gun arm rose back to a firing position and lined up on the closest group of soldiers. A few raised their weapons. Most of them ran.

  The autocannons tore up the ground and the soldiers. One survivor shrieked until he vanished beneath a massive bronze foot. Talos took three more steps to the center of the camp.

  Kraft let out his breath and watched as the bronze giant annihilated tents and trucks, soldiers and scientists. Chaos and confusion spread across the camp. Some of the men tried to fight back, but their rifles had no effect. One brave soldier threw a trio of grenades, one after another, but he only drew the automaton’s attention. He vanished in a burst of exploding cannon shells.

  Adrenaline shook his body, but Kraft managed to get his thoughts under control. There was more to Talos than just the gears in its head, apparently. If the Nazis had thought it through, they would’ve been more careful about re-activating a machine designed to destroy invaders.

  The thought tickled his mind as Talos’s heel came down on one of the generators, crushing it into the ground. Another burst from the cannons liquefied two technicians and a soldier running for a car. A few last survivors tried to flee. Talos stalked after them, shaking the earth with each stride until their screams ended one way or another.

  Then the giant stood and surveyed the silent ruin of the plain. The cannons had gouged pits and craters across the ground. The remains of the tents burned, as did one of the bulldozers. The smell of gasoline almost hid the smell of blood.

  Talos turned and marched.

  Kraft watched it move east into the
dawn. A mile away already and he could still feel each impact of its heels on the ground. He pictured Crete in his head, from his own studies and the briefings. It had to be close to the ocean. If it kept the eastern bearing and followed the coast, at that speed it would end up at Heraklion in less than an hour.

  “No,” he murmured. “Not Heraklion. Knossos.”

  “What’s that?”

  Kraft shoved himself away from the tree and fumbled with his holster.

  The dusty figure put out its hands. “Easy, Kraft. It’s just me.”

  The sleeve of Carter’s leather coat had been reduced to rags, along with the shirt beneath it. Streaks of blood painted the arm and the side of the Roman’s head. His eyes were still bright and alert.

  “I thought you were dead,” said Kraft.

  “Almost. Blast threw me out of the crevasse, and I slid all the way down the hill. The jacket and pack took the worst of it.” He touched his leg. “Going to have a lot of bruises tonight.”

  Kraft glanced after Talos. The giant had vanished in the distance beyond a hill. “If we live to see tonight.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Talos. It’s killing everything.”

  Carter smirked. “I noticed. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch, believe me.”

  Kraft shook his head. “It’s not going after the Nazis. I think it’s going after everyone.”

  “What?” Carter’s thin smile vanished. “What makes you say that?”

  “This thing’s out of time. It went to sleep almost four thousand years ago and woke up today in 1942.” Kraft pointed east, after the giant. “It’s heading back to Knossos. It’s going to find the city in ruins and assume the island was overrun. And then it’s going to do its job and kill every man, woman, and child on Crete—almost half a million people—because it’s not going to recognize any of them as a citizen of Knossos. We’re all invaders.”

  Carter stared after the giant. Distant footfalls still made the ground tremble. “You’re basing this on what?”

  “The first thing it did was kill Zaimis. A native.” Grit and dirt drifted off Kraft as he stood up.

  “When they were controlling it,” Carter pointed out.

  “Does it look like they ever had control of it?”

  Carter dusted himself off. The rags of his sleeve flapped as he did. “Okay,” he said. “It was stopped before, right? How did they stop it then?”

  Kraft collected his thoughts. “The Argonauts. They landed here on Crete and Talos attacked. Jason’s wife, Medea, convinced Talos to open its own vein and drain out all its blood. The ankle’s its weak spot, where she got it to—”

  “So, we’ve got to make it bleed?”

  “Yes.”

  In the distance, the cannons of Talos let off two quick bursts that rang in the air, then a third.

  Carter nodded. “Well, then. Good thing for us weapons have improved a bit since the Bronze Age.”

  “Probably why they were adding all the extra armor.”

  “I’m sure. Come on.”

  They made their way down the hill to the ruins of the camp. Carter limped, and Kraft saw that one heel of the man’s boot had been torn away. He couldn’t guess what state the foot was in.

  They ran across the plain to the remains of the tents. “What are we looking for?” asked Kraft.

  “Their armory.” Carter dragged a panel of canvas aside and examined the wreckage under it. “I didn’t see anything else explode past the cannon shells so I’m guessing it didn’t get hit.”

  Kraft eyed the patches of flame around the camp. “Or they haven’t gone off yet.”

  “Do you want to worry about that or do you want to stop your mechanical man?” He kicked the latches on one crate with his good boot. They snapped off and he threw the lid aside. “Medical supplies.”

  The professor tried to ignore the dark spray of blood on the tent canvas as he dragged another panel away. “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything. Explosives. Rockets. Maybe an anti-tank gun?” Carter marched to the next fallen tent and pulled the limp canvas aside. “Rifles and grenades,” he said. “I think this is it.”

  Kraft helped him pull crates out of the fallen tent. Carter kicked at some more locks until Kraft found a crowbar. They snapped hinges and threw crates open.

  Carter popped the latches on a smaller box and lifted out something that looked like a low, covered pot without a handle. “Ahhh,” he said. “Tellermine. This might be useful.”

  “Did you say it’s a mine?”

  The Roman nodded. “Anti-tank mine. One of the newer ones.” He glanced around and pointed across the plain. “See if you can get that car running.”

  Kraft ran across the field. He saw a boot he felt sure wasn’t empty, some pieces of bloody meat he tried not to focus on, and stepped around several sprays of blood that hadn’t soaked into the ground yet. Near the car’s door sat a German helmet with strands of hair sticking out from beneath it. He opened the door and took a wide step over the helmet.

  The car looked to be something local—an old roadster or town car the invading Germans had seized and decorated with a few small flags that had been torn to shreds in the assault. The vehicle’s leather top had been punched and torn as well, and overlapping webs of cracks decorated both windows on the driver side.

  The keys hung in the ignition. The engine turned over on the first try. Kraft dropped the car into gear and brought it around in a wide turn. Carter waved him over, and Kraft parked the car a few feet away.

  “How much gas?” asked the Roman.

  “Three-quarters of a tank.”

  “Good.” He limped to the car with a mine in each hand. Kraft stepped out and headed to the collection of explosives. “Are we going to try to set up a minefield ahead of him?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He lifted two more of the explosive pots and glanced back. Carter crouched at the front of the vehicle. He’d set one of the mines down. He held the other one flat against the car, trigger out, while he wired its handle to the grill. He finished, gave it a nudge to check, and then picked up the second one.

  “You have to be joking,” said Kraft.

  “We don’t have enough options to make jokes. Bring those over here.” Carter leaned back and looked at the grill. “I think we can get eight on the front.”

  “And then what?”

  “By then we’ll have figured out how to put the others on the hood.”

  Ten minutes later they had nine of the Tellermines wired to the car’s grill. The other three had been fastened to the hood with yards of cloth tape Kraft found in the medical tent. Carter slid behind the wheel. Kraft jumped into the passenger seat. The engine coughed and chugged back to life.

  The Germans had beaten down a dirt road that led them to a narrow highway. The strip of gray pavement had enough blind curves that Carter kept the speed under forty miles an hour, and even then the tires squealed on the turns. He squinted into the sun before reaching up and tugging down the sun visor. “It’d be very bad if we bumped into something right now,” he said, gripping the wheel with both hands again.

  Another minute of driving and the ocean appeared from behind the hill. “A coastal route,” said Kraft. “Talos is probably following its old path around the island.”

  Carter grunted and raised his chin to get more of the sun out of his eyes.

  Kraft smelled smoke just as they went around the corner. The truck had been blown apart, and at least six bodies lay scattered across the road. They wore basic dungarees and coats. One had a dress. All of them lacked at least one limb. Two didn’t have heads.

  “So,” he said, a mile later, “what’s our plan?”

  Carter shrugged. “Ram it. Figure between the impact and the TNT in the mines, we’ll either break it or melt it. Either way, the blood comes out and Crete’s saved.”

  Something shiny clung to the pavement up ahead. As they passed, Kraft recognized it as a motorcycle, crushed flat a
gainst the pavement, and a German uniform soaked with blood and gore. The morning sun highlighted the outline of a footprint around the wreckage.

  Kraft turned his head and the remains of the motorcycle and its rider vanished around a curve. Cracks in the road beat out a low, steady thump against the tires. He scanned the hilltops for any sign of the bronze giant.

  Their car swung back and forth along the coastal road for another three minutes before they caught a glimpse of Talos over the crest of one hill. The road dropped them down after that, but a minute later the bronze head and shoulders loomed ahead. The sound of a machine gun echoed through the air, followed by the thunder of cannons.

  The bumps in the road started again, worse than before, and Kraft realized the bumps went in time with each massive step Talos took.

  “Not long now,” said Carter.

  They crested the hill. Talos loomed almost a mile away, but the road between them stretched ruler-straight. The smoking remains of a German checkpoint sprawled on one side of the road—broken bodies, burst sandbags, and a bent machine gun.

  Carter downshifted and gunned the engine. “I think we can catch it before it makes it into the hills,” he said.

  “And if we can’t?”

  “Then we’ll have to follow it into the hills and get a lot closer before we bail out.”

  “I’m glad to hear bailing out is part of the plan.”

  The car roared down the strip of pavement, lurching as they passed over one of the dead soldiers. A rifle bounced up and smacked the tellermines. Both men cringed.

  Five steps, each one covering dozens of yards, carried Talos to the top of the rise.

  “Faster,” urged Kraft.

  Carter snarled and shifted gears again. The car lurched forward. A tremor worked its way through the frame and floorboards.

  Talos moved down past the hill. The earth shook in time with its steps. It turned to follow the road around a ridge.

  Their old car reached the base of the hill and lost speed. The engine revved, the gears spun, and their ascent slowed. They stopped gaining on the bronze giant.