City of Iron and Dust

by J. P. Oakes

  She punches the air with a knotted fist. “Congratulations, ma’am.” Thacker, once more in the driver’s seat, once more navigating the short drive between the Opera House and House Spriggan, seems to believe his input will add to the moment.

  Granny Spregg ignores him. Her fist is throbbing angrily after that punch. She pulls back the sleeve of the long glove she’s been wearing, examines it. Her hand is almost entirely purple. The veins no longer stand out from the palm. Tendrils the color of port wine have crawled up to her elbow.

  Excitement threatens to curdle to nausea. She tries to keep on believing that her rapid breathing is because of adrenaline.

  “However, ma’am—” Thacker is for some reason still talking. “—we do still need to secure the Dust…”

  “You need to secure your mouth.” It’s a weak return. Largely because he’s right.

  One step at a time, she tells herself. You have troops in the Fae Districts. You have bought them more time. Everything is coming together.

  Her eyes linger on the purple stain, though, as she rolls her glove back up.

  Still, she is not dead as House Spriggan opens up its gates to welcome her home. She is not dead as guards question Thacker, and scan his retina, and take his blood. She is not dead as dogs sniff at the trunk. And she is not dead as she steps out of the car and into the courtyard. She is still victorious. She is still the one who cowed all the other Houses in fear.

  She does, however, come a little closer to mortality when Brethelda bursts out of House Spriggan, storming into the courtyard with her jackboots clacking on the cobbles, her mouth set so straight architects could use it to draw their plans.

  “Mother!” Rage bubbles on Brethelda’s lips. “Mother, what did you do?”

  Granny Spregg bows her head. So, the wires are already coming in. The first ripples of her actions. It won’t be enough for Brethelda to know the precise details yet, though. Hopefully, even when those specifics start coming into focus, she will take her time seeing their full ramifications. Audacity has always been hard for Brethelda to grasp.

  “Don’t frown, dear,” she says. “You’re never pretty when you frown.”

  Brethelda blows through this opening gambit with a face set like a bulldozer. “Was I not entirely clear, Mother? Are you too infirm to understand direct orders?”

  Inside, Granny Spregg smiles. This fight will be a good one. “Sometimes having your head up your ass can muffle you a little, my darling.”

  Brethelda balls her fists. Granny Spregg wonders if she’s about to be hit in the face again. What a night.

  “I told you to go and eat shit, Mother,” Brethelda hisses, “and yet you return to me with your breath mint-fresh. You return to me, and all I hear is news of House leaders caught between fear and rage. So, answer me, Mother, why shouldn’t I calm them all down by flying your flayed skin from the flagpole?”

  Granny Spregg knows deep down that she has not done a wonderful job raising all her children. Still, at times like this, she is a little proud of the job she did with Brethelda.

  “Well, dear, because—” Granny Spregg says, and takes a breath.

  And then she takes a breath.

  And takes a breath.

  Each one feels smaller than the last. Each one feels sucked through a straw, and someone is gripping that straw tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and tighter.

  The world narrows to a point. Darkness closes in. It frames Brethelda’s rising confusion and rage. Her face, in fact, is so comical Granny Spregg would laugh if only she could catch her breath.

  If only she—

  If—

  Skart

  It has all come so horribly close to falling apart. The rebels’ spirit almost fled at the first signs of resistance; the rebels themselves almost fled along with it, almost slipped away into the shadows again, to lick their wounds again, to hope they survived the reprisals again. It was almost every other rebellion. Again.

  Skart won’t let it happen. He runs from table to table now, snuffing fires as quickly as he can. And half the time he doesn’t need anything except an opinion and an air of certainty, but without leadership—without someone grabbing them all by the scruff of the neck and dragging them forward—it all threatens to collapse into paralysis.

  And still, for every small fire he puts out here, the larger conflagrations are burning out there in the Iron City, eating up the streets, threatening to eat up all his plans. And the more he stands here and is told about the chaos, the worse it gets, and the more everyone else obsesses over the minutiae and fails to see what’s really happening.

  “Goblins were seen where?” he asks a gnome barely out of his teens. The gnome points at a map again, again, again.

  “Red Caps?”

  “Not all.” The gnome is sweating. “Some wore yellow.”

  “House Spriggan,” Skart breathes quickly. He leans in closer to the map. “Where? Where precisely?”

  The gnome’s eyes go wide. “I… erm…” he splutters. “Not everyone…”

  “The ones you know,” Skart says with as much patience as he can muster. It’s not much.

  The gnome points, and points again, and again, and again.

  “You’re sure?”

  The gnome shrugs helplessly. Brumble lays a gray-barked hand on Skart’s shoulder. “The reports aren’t organized, Skart,” she says. “He’s doing the best he can. Better than most could.”

  Skart takes a breath. None of them see.

  But then he smiles, and bows, and says, “I’m sorry. It’s just… they’re all over.”

  And they are. House Spriggan and House Red Cap goblins are scattered over the map like a rash.

  “I need…” Skart glances towards the offices at the back of the basement. He glances at Knull. He glances at all the other little fires. So much to do… Still, there’s one thing he can’t put off any longer.

  “I need time to think,” he says, and then he holds up a hand to forestall Brumble as her jaw hinges open. “Five minutes. That’s it.”

  “Last time…”

  “I’m not leaving the building, Brumble. And I’m not asking permission. I am explaining.”

  She works her jaw, but in the end he hasn’t left her with anywhere to go, and by the time she nods, he’s already stalking back to the office with the well-oiled door and the new rotary phone. Once there he checks no one has followed him, then crosses to the phone and dials a number that only one or two other fae in the whole Iron City know.

  The phone is picked up on the second ring. “Speak.” The voice on the line’s far end is full of caustic command.

  “There are Spriggans here.” Skart keeps his voice level, keeps the inflection neutral, but it is in the end an accusation. “There are Spriggans everywhere.”

  There is a pause on the phone. When the voice replies, it is a hiss of barely contained rage: “Bedlack Spregg has the Dust.”

  That stops Skart. He stands in the dusty old office staring off in silence.

  “Did you hear me?” Osmondo Red says from the other end of the phone. “You have failed. The whole plan is fucked. Wrap it up.”

  Wrap it up. The death knell. Everything he has worked to create. Everything he is fighting to achieve, all dismissed with three words. But Osmondo Red is not someone you defy easily, or without consequence.

  And yet…

  “No,” he says.

  “What did you say to me?”

  “She’s lying. She doesn’t have it. She—”

  “Then how does she fucking know about it?” Osmondo is shouting. Skart almost wants to check his cheek for the goblin’s phlegm.

  “I don’t know.” He is working hard to keep his voice level. “I don’t know how she found out, that’s why I’m calling you. But she doesn’t have the Dust. I swear.”

  A pause. “Do you have it?”

  Skart delays as long as he can. He has to work out exactly how to say this. “I will. It was… intercepted…”

  “In
tercepted?” Osmondo’s shout is so loud it makes the phone bark static.

  “It’s a nobody. A low-level dealer.” Skart is speaking quickly now. “I have him. He’s here with me. He stashed it, but I am… persuading him to share its location with me. It won’t take long. I swear.”

  More silence. Skart feels compelled to speak.

  “Don’t end this,” he says. “I will retrieve the Dust. The presence of House Spriggan troops will work to our advantage. The whole purpose of this rebellion is to flush the dissidents into the open. Whatever else they’re here to do, the Spriggans will help do that.”

  A long, slow inhalation on the other end. “Osmondo,” Skart says. “Please.” He’s not above begging. He’s not above anything anymore. Those days are dead, long buried and rotting. Like he will be soon. “This is my last chance.”

  “Fine,” Osmondo snaps. “Call me when you have the Dust. If it isn’t within the next two hours, I pull the plug.”

  Skart nods into the dark. “It won’t be a problem.”

  There’s a pause, a throaty breath on the line. Skart is breathing hard, anxious to return to the scrum, anxious to make this work. Say it, he wants to scream down the phone.

  “My daughter,” Osmondo says finally. He is being careful, Skart thinks, to keep his tone neutral. “She’s out there in all this. You…” He pauses. “You haven’t heard anything?”

  Skart licks his lips, unsure what he’s expected to say, unsure if this will return the plans to fresh jeopardy. “No.”

  Another hesitation and then a snort from the end of the phone. Skart waits to hear what Osmondo has to say next but the line dies. The conversation, it appears, is done.

  Skart stands there, calming himself, calculating. It’s OK, he tells himself. I can make this work.

  He turns back to the door, resolute once more. And then he stops cold.

  Standing behind him, eyes wide, is a young pixie, perhaps in her early twenties. Her mouth is working but she makes no sound.

  Skart’s heart hammers at his ribs like it wants to be let out. Sweat leaps from every pore. Then Skart smiles just as wide as he can and he takes a step toward her. “I know you,” he says. And he does. She is one of the pixies who healed him earlier. “How can I help you?”

  “I…” she says. And she takes a breath. “I…” she says again. “I saw you come back here.” Her voice is rising in pitch. “I thought you looked… a little in pain. Maybe? I thought maybe… maybe I could help?” Her question, though, isn’t really about his health.

  “And how much of the conversation I just had did you hear?” Skart asks her. He’s still smiling.

  “I…”

  But he already knows.

  “I imagine it all sounded quite confusing.”

  She doesn’t quite nod. She doesn’t quite shake her head. He steps closer. He puts one hand on her shoulder.

  “That’s OK,” he tells her.

  “It is?” she asks.

  “Not really.”

  Then he drives a stiletto up into her stomach, punching towards her lungs, nicking her heart. She gasps, a sliver of sound. He moves his hand from her shoulder to her throat. He twists the knife, and air and blood rush out of her, and he steps out of the way of the widening spill.

  The pixie’s legs go out from under her. Only his hand on her throat keeps her upright. Her eyes roll back. He keeps ahold of her, keeps the wound open.

  After a minute he lets go. She falls to the floor in a heap, just meat and bones now. He pushes her out of view of the door, then cleans his hands on her apron. After a moment’s debate, he leaves the knife still stuck in her.

  Then, with a sigh, he opens the office door and slips back out into the basement. There is, after all, still a lot of work to be done.

  15

  Realizations and Repercussions

  Sil

  There is, Sil is sure, something deeply wrong with these fae. They are in an apartment building lobby—which is itself, she would like to remind them, in the middle of a riot that is almost a warzone—and do they check their armaments? Do they order scouts placed? Do they prepare to move to higher ground with good lines of sight to get recon for the battle to come? Or do they, for some unfathomable reason, casually stand about discussing what to do next? Do they raise their fucking hands when they want to take a turn to talk?

  They do. They genuinely do. Maybe, Sil thinks, they genuinely want to die.

  None of this should be a concern for her, of course. Their deaths are of no consequence. They know nothing of Jag and so, unless they choose to become an obstacle or a threat, they can be dismissed.

  But why, a small voice in her mind says, is Jag of consequence to you? Why beyond the reasons House Red Cap has given you? The House that tried to kill you. That left you here with a hole in your leg watching dumbass fae raise their dumbass hands as they discuss matters of war.

  These fae, that voice says, who have done more for you in thirty minutes than House Red Cap has done for you your whole life.

  How long, she wonders, has that voice been there? How long has it been talking, while she has refused to listen?

  Why is she listening now?

  If House Red Cap wants to kill her, then that, she has been taught, is its prerogative. She is but a cog in its machine. Sometimes cogs wear down. Sometimes machines are updated. Her life—she has been instructed again, and again, and again—is forfeit to Osmondo Red’s will. If he raises a sword and asks her to bow her head, then it is her unquestioning duty to stare at the floor.

  These lessons were hard learned. Why should she disobey them now? Why should she consider struggling to her feet and screaming at these fae that the clock started ticking the moment the commandos she killed stopped reporting in?

  She doesn’t know. In the end, she is no more effective at answering her own questions than the absurd circle of fae is at preparing for war.

  And so, all her decisions are robbed from her one by one, and time marches on, until she has none left.

  The fae are coming to the end of their discussion. They are starting to move with the urgency they should have possessed fifteen minutes ago. This is when the first shot rings out.

  The goblins come at the fae exactly as she knew they would. Two shots through the door—both kill shots—then the flashbang. She squeezes her eyes shut, opens her mouth. It doesn’t render the concussive blast fun, but at least her abused senses don’t shut down. She’s still aware enough to see the goblins start to come in through the door, to see them cut down three fae within the first three seconds of the fight.

  Other fae—smarter, quicker, luckier—throw themselves free of the immediate onslaught. One of them, for no reason she can tell, flings himself forward, tangling with one of the oncoming goblins. They both spill to the floor in a flailing bundle of arms and legs, spoiling the textbook entry.

  Another fae—a brixie or a bridhe, she can’t tell in the chaos—levels a pistol at the mess of goblins trying to barge past their fallen colleague. He only gets off three shots before he’s gunned down, but it’s enough to amplify the chaos.

  And still, through the gun smoke, and screaming, and diving bodies, the outcome is obvious to Sil. A disorganized rabble versus trained commandos. One side with body armor, the other with workshirts and patched pants.

  She should leave now, as fast as her injured leg will allow. She should take advantage of the chaos. She has no doubt that she is at least one of the intended targets of the attack. But for just a moment the commandos are preoccupied with the fae.

  She should use their deaths as cover. She owes them nothing.

  She shouldn’t want to save them from themselves. Nothing she wants should affect anything in her life at all.

  And yet now, she finds… it does.

  She tries to get up. She bends her leg, screaming as she does it, no matter how much she tries to bite down on the pain. She feels the wound tear open a second time, warmth spilling down her pants leg. She keeps on going,
refusing to give in, but her leg is disobedient, collapsing beneath her weight. She falls back, howling.

  From the floor, she sees order start to emerge from the chaos. The goblins dictate its nature. There are six of them in the lobby now, fanning out wider and wider, establishing firing positions, closing down the fae’s angles of attack. The fae are pressing back towards a hallway and a bank of elevators, knotting up, trying to find cover, ceding control. They need, Sil knows, to run into this fight’s teeth, to refuse to give the goblins room to exercise their superior fire power. But they don’t know that. They’re just civilians. Just fools. Just expendable waste. No good to her or anyone.

  Then, a machine gun starts up, old and chunky, clattering through its cycle. She sees Bee standing in the mouth of the hallway, wrestling with the gun as bullets fly wildly about, puncturing the ceiling and floor in equal measure.

  She sees him asking to get shot. The fool. The expendable waste.

  The one who bound your leg and asked you what you wanted.

  She kicks toward him as best she can, slithering across the floor, leaving a red trail from the freshly opened wound in her leg.

  She barely makes it two yards before the inevitable happens.

  The bullet clips Bee in the hip, sends him to the floor. Fae dive for cover as he spins, finger still on the trigger. When he loses his grip, the silence is almost as alarming as the cacophony that came before.

  “Throw down your weapons.” A goblin voice rings out, syllables short and clipped. No bargaining chip is proffered, but these fae might just be stupid enough to comply. Or to vote on complying.

  Bee lies still on the cold linoleum tiles. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut from the pain.

  “Open your eyes,” Sil whispers. She wants, right here, right now, for him to open his eyes.

  The world of course does not care what Sil wants. It never has. And yet… Perhaps it is a miracle. Perhaps Bee hears her. Perhaps it is nothing more than coincidence. But Bee opens his eyes.

  “The gun,” she mouths at him, desperate now. “Give me the gun.”