Navigators of Dune

Ptolemy’s flame-cannons incinerated the savages, and some of them continued to run for surprising distances before they collapsed into a horrific smoking tangle. His blasts of heat were so targeted and intense that skulls exploded as the brains inside boiled into steam. Then he widened the nozzle and mowed down crowds of hundreds at a time.

Swiveling his head-turret, Ptolemy saw dozens of cymeks wreaking similar havoc. Not far away, Noffe’s walker smashed a clock tower with a thundering noise, then plowed through the rubble to crush a warehouse and a school before scampering over the ruins.

To Ptolemy’s astonishment, though, he saw more than a thousand Butlerians rush toward one of the cymeks, not caring how many were massacred on the way. Only a small percentage of the mob made it to the walker body, where they used hooks and ropes to attach themselves, climbing onto the giant cymek like parasites.

Ptolemy realized that swarms of the people were also racing toward him. He blasted them with explosives, incinerated them with fire, burned their flesh with acid. A round orifice on his torso belched poisonous smoke and nerve toxins. In his immense form, he thundered forward, killing everything in his path.

It was exhilarating.

Still, the fanatics raced toward the cymeks, throwing away their lives for no purpose. The foolish Butlerians kept coming, and Ptolemy slew thousands of them.

Yet, tens of thousands filled the losses, and kept coming.

Death does not diminish the power of the truly faithful. The strength of a martyr is a thousand times the strength of a mere follower.

—MANFORD TORONDO, Lampadas rallies

The cymek walkers marched forward like monsters from the greatest nightmares of mankind, smashing buildings into rubble, slaughtering crowds as if they were massed insects.

Even so, Manford went out to face them. Bravely, he rode high on the shoulders of his Swordmaster. He showed no fear, because fear was a weakness—and thousands of his followers thronged around him. They did not flee from the deadly machines, but instead rushed defiantly toward them. With so much faith and strength all around him, Manford did not feel weak. Not at all.

Wearing a powerful voice amplifier, he shouted the familiar mantra to rally them: “‘The mind of man is holy!’” They took up the call and turned it into a battle cry.

More than a hundred cymeks unleashed an array of appalling weapons against his valiant followers: fire, acid, poisonous smoke, explosive projectiles. Thousands of victims lay strewn across the city, smoking, melting bodies, writhing unrecognizable forms, nameless. The faithful. The martyrs. The blessed ones. The only shield the Butlerians had was their numbers and their powerful faith—something even demonic thinking machines could not defeat.

From Anari’s shoulders, Manford waved his arms and shouted for his Butlerians to press forward. The mob flooded ahead without hesitation, knowing that the lives they expended before the mechanical monsters were not a wasted effort, but more sparks in a rising conflagration. Even surrounded by explosions, horrific screams, smoke and blood and terror, Manford felt fully alive and energized. “Tear down those machine demons!”

Anari raised her sword in front of her and strode forward. During her training on Ginaz, she and her fellow Swordmasters had practiced against combat meks, but those had been much smaller programmed robots, with computer minds. The fact that the cymeks were driven by traitorous human brains made these enemies much worse, far more dangerous.

The terrible battle machines destroyed everything in their path and kept going, but Manford had over a million followers here. Any number of sacrifices was acceptable, so long as the cymeks were destroyed and Venport was defeated.

Additional Swordmasters in the throngs now joined the fight, trained fighters who led countless believers in the biggest surge against the cymeks, a tidal wave of simple weapons and flesh slamming against the machine walkers. Wild and desperate people clung like bugs to the nearby warrior forms; they climbed up the segmented legs to reach the main turrets.

Deacon Harian accompanied a pair of Swordmasters, shouting as they led a mob of thousands down a side street and up onto the rooftops. They intercepted and attacked a cymek walker that rumbled close. Its flame-cannons and artillery projectiles destroyed the nearby buildings, but did not kill all of the people—at least not yet.