Braided Path 03 - The Ascendancy Veil

by Chris Wooding

  Other ships were being freed from their moorings up and down the dock now. The remaining craft were filling fast, and Kaiku guessed they would depart close together, for the sailors knew they could not afford to wait any more. The report of cannons bellowed through the air, seeming nearer now than before.

  And then suddenly the docks were alive with gunfire as the soldiers of Lalyara opened up on the first of the Aberrants. Sailors on board Kaiku’s ship roared the order to cast off, and the sails unfurled along the mast as ropes pulled tight. Tkiurathi on board sought targets for their rifles as the Aberrants appeared.

  Massive ghauregs led the charge, smashing into the defenders on the north side of the docks and throwing them aside like broken dolls. Shrillings tore in after them, warbling in their throats as they pounced here and there, taking down men and savaging them; and skrendel slipped between, biting and strangling. They overwhelmed the primary defences by sheer suicidal force. Even after four years, Saramyr soldiers found it hard to stand against an enemy that cared nothing for their own lives. Then the Tkiurathi on the ships opened up, and the predators were cut to pieces in a shredding hail of rifle balls. But the range was long, and some of them survived to engage the remainder of the soldiers. A dockside cathouse, empty now, took a direct hit from one of the Weaver cannons and vomited fiery rubble from its façade. Swords were drawn, rifles barked, and the soldiers fought as best they could, but they knew their cause was hopeless. They were giving their lives so that the ships could get away. They had been ordered to hold this spot and they would die doing so.

  Now Kaiku could feel the slow, massive movement of the junk as it caught the wind and the last of its hawsers were cut free. She shoved through the crowd, her mind divided between the communication of the Sisters and the incoming missiles. She let her kana seek Tsata out, following the link between them, the bonds of emotion that existed in a palpable sense within the Weave.

  She found him refilling the ignition powder in his rifle from a pouch, just as the pier began to slide away. Another boat to their right had launched ahead of them, a huge, swaying shadow in the murk as it gathered speed. Tsata did not see her as she approached; he was intent on priming and aiming again, picking off the Aberrants that were invading the docks.

  One of the junks was not fast enough to escape the tide of teeth and claws, and the creatures swarmed up the gangplank onto the ship; but then it began to move, and the plank fell free, pitching the creatures into the sea. Those few on board were killed, but they took three times their number with them.

  Kaiku frowned as she bent her concentration towards a fresh volley from the Weaver ships. There were fewer missiles coming in now, as the Weavers turned their cannons to the junks that were trying to run the blockade; but one of the feya-kori had accelerated in its rampage towards the docks, smashing through the buildings of the city. Though slow, it was not slow enough for Kaiku’s liking, and it seemed to know that the ships were escaping and was heading right for them.

  Then the pier was behind them and they were out in the harbour. Some of the Aberrants were throwing themselves at the junks, bouncing off their hulls and into the water, where they swam raggedly away. Others were pushed over the edge of the docks by the headlong rush of those behind them.

  But they were out of the Aberrants’ reach now. The last of the ships had pulled away, and those soldiers that were left on the docks – including several dozen Tkiurathi who had not made it aboard in time – were cut to meat by the Weavers’ creatures. The sight was mercifully shrouded by the fog, which gathered ever thicker as they gained distance on the carnage.

  There was a moment’s respite in the bombardment from the sea, during which Kaiku laid her hand on Tsata’s bare shoulder. He was wearing a sleeveless waistcoat of grey hemp, as ever, stitched with traditional patterns. He did not turn, but he laid the hand of his other arm across hers as he stared at the fading outline of the dock.

  A burst of alarm across the Weave shocked her out of her brief calm, and she turned her attention to it. It was one of her Sisters, noting that the approaching feya-kori had changed direction, and was no longer heading for the docks but had angled itself out into the sea. Kaiku heard the furious hiss from the fog, the angry boiling and bubbling of the salt water as the feya-kori touched it. A wave rocked the junk to their left, and then Kaiku felt the swell pass underneath their vessel too.

  She went cold as she saw the black Weave-shape of the demon ploughing through the waves. It was going to intercept them.

  A mournful groan came from the mist, terrifyingly close, and it spread panic across the deck. The ship that had left dock ahead of them was still close on their starboard side. The mist thinned in a swirl of wind and the vast shape of the demon reared out of the water, trailing spray and steam and drooling poison. It rose up, its yellow eyes muted and baleful in the haze, and raised both its enormous arms above its head; then it came down with a thunderous rush of air, onto the junk next to Kaiku’s.

  She could not help joining in the cry of horror from her ship as the feya-kori smashed the hull of their neighbour in half, breaking its back in one great lunge. The noise was tremendous; the water detonated as the demon’s arms plunged through the junk and into the waves, blasting spume and spray in a great cloud. A wave humped under their vessel, tipping it sickeningly. Kaiku grabbed the railing, thinking that they would capsize; several people were knocked overboard. Then the tipping slowed, and with a vertiginous plunge it pitched the other way with enough momentum to fling a few more shrieking into the sea. Kaiku was crushed against the railing by the people sliding across the mist-wet deck behind her. She could not take her eyes from the ruin of the junk as its two halves keeled towards each other, its sails burning from the touch of the feya-kori, shedding blackened bodies and live men and women as its horrible, inexorable tilt steepened.

  The bow half did not have time to sink; the feya-kori reared up again, and smashed it to flinders with sullen brutality.

  Kaiku looked away; but she could not avoid the sight, for it was there in the Weave, and she was aware of everything around. The death-cries of the three Sisters that had been on board pulsed over her.

  Their own junk levelled out, cutting through the waves, leaving the demon behind in the midst of the wreckage. She could hear the bellowing of the captain as he shouted incomprehensible commands at his crew, bullying them into action. The wind was tugging them onward, out towards the harbour mouth, and they were picking up speed. The feya-kori made no move to follow. They had reached water that was too deep for it. Instead, it turned towards the dock with a long, low moan, and was slowly swallowed by the fog.

  The Tkiurathi on deck fell silent. The wind whipped around the rigging, flapping the edges of the fanlike sails. There was no question of going back for survivors. The feya-kori could still be about, and they would not be able to outrun it a second time. A dawning grief settled on the ship.

  But the silence did not last long, for the cannons began again somewhere ahead of them, and incoming shellshot began to splash into the sea.

  ‘Cannons ready!’ the captain bellowed.

  ((Find and engage the Weavers)) instructed a Sister who stood at the captain’s side. ((Blind their ships))

  Kaiku could see the ragged line of vessels now, strung out across their path, beacons of golden light in the Weave. Some of the Sisters’ ships were already on the other side of the line, some slipping through, and at least one sinking in flames. The closest enemy was waiting in the water ahead of them: they would pass it to their starboard side if they kept on this tack. It was flinging cannon fire with spectacular inaccuracy in their direction.

  There was no Weaver on board.

  ((This one has already been dealt with)) Kaiku informed her Sisters. ((Instruct the captain))

  She offhandedly destroyed shellshot that was looping near, then returned her attention to the enemy ship. The men on board were aware of them: the captain’s voice had carried even through the fog, and the creakin
g of the ship as it hauled its massive weight across the waves could be heard. But the fog hid everything.

  Kaiku held her breath as they cut alongside it. It loomed close, so close that Kaiku, with her Weave-sight, could not believe that the enemy did not see them. She could pick out the individual men on the ship, could sense their anxiety as they gazed out into the murk to catch a glimpse of their adversary. Others were busy loading cannons.

  Then, a skirl of wind, and the mist parted; and she saw their anxiety turn to horror as they caught sight of the huge shadow gliding past them.

  ‘Starboard cannons!’ the captain shouted. ‘Fire!’

  The junk’s artillery engaged with a deafening multiple roar, and the side of the enemy ship erupted. Grapeshot riddled the hull, scoring a long and splintered scar down its flank. The fire-cannons threw flaming slicks along its deck, into its sails, sending the crew into a shrieking panic as their hair and skin was coated in burning jelly. There was an enormous explosion on the far side of the ship, blasting a rain of splinters outward and leaving a gaping wound there. In one point-blank broadside the enemy was fatally damaged, and what retaliation they might have made was abandoned in the futile rush to save their craft.

  Kaiku’s ship slid by and away, leaving their opponents listing hard and already beginning to sink, fading in the gloom.

  ‘Are we out of danger?’ Tsata murmured to Kaiku.

  ‘Not yet,’ she replied, ‘Two more are moving to intercept us. These two have Weavers with them. They can see us.’ She paused for a moment. ‘One of them is changing direction toward another one of our craft.’ She checked the waters again, listening to the reports of those Sisters that were through the line. Distant explosions boomed through the fog. ‘Once we have tackled this one, we will be out and in open sea.’

  ‘Can we evade it?’

  ‘I think not,’ Kaiku replied. ‘We are laden more heavily. Spread the word; we may need rifles ready.’

  Tsata tipped his chin and passed on her words in rapid Okhamban to those nearest to him, who then began to do same to their neighbours.

  ‘Do not disturb me now,’ Kaiku said, feeling the approach of the Weavers. ‘I need to concentrate.’

  She abandoned her senses almost entirely, leaving only enough to maintain a vague awareness of her surroundings, and sewed her consciousness fully into the Weave. She meshed with two other Sisters who were on board with her, constructing defences, fortifying their position with traps and barriers and labyrinths in preparation. They worked with a beautiful and unthinking concinnity. Kaiku found herself suddenly thinking that she would miss that when she abandoned the Red Order for good.

  Then the Weavers were upon them, and battle was joined.

  While the invisible conflict was conducted on a plane beyond their abilities to register, the men and women on board the junk peered into the fog. One of the Sisters had not entered the fray, for she was the captain’s eyes, and she relayed to him the position of the enemy. A distant creaking could be heard now, and the rustling of sails. The captain’s brow was taut. He knew that to come through this with any hope of surviving the long sea journey ahead, they could not afford to be greatly damaged. There would be no port between here and there to effect repairs. They had to win this match outright.

  Seconds crawled slowly by on the ship, but in the Weave they lasted much longer. Kaiku darted back and forth in flurries, harrying the three Weavers with spirals and tangles while the other Sisters spun new defences in front of the old. They were gaining ground steadily, bewildering the enemy and forcing them to retreat, then consolidating their position and pushing forward again. One of the Weavers was a weak link, and Kaiku attacked him mercilessly. She guessed that he was retaining a portion of his consciousness to instruct his captain. They did not have the luxury of a spare combatant. It was that Weaver whose inefficient mazes Kaiku went for, tearing them to shreds, chasing him back towards his own vessel, which left his companions exposed unless they retreated themselves. By unspoken consent, she was the aggressor here, and her Sisters lent her cover and support. Slowly but surely, the Weavers were being beaten back.

  ‘They are angling for a broadside,’ murmured the Sister who accompanied the captain.

  The captain cursed under his breath. He struggled for inspiration, but none came. Since each captain knew where the other was, they might as well be tackling each other in daylight. There was nowhere to run and hide. With what he knew of the Weaver ships, he guessed that he had a roughly equal chance of winning out in a broadside, but he doubted he could come away from it without wounds to his junk that would sink it sometime during the subsequent voyage. The artillery was loaded, the men ready. All he could do was wait and hope.

  Though she was occupied almost entirely with the slip and sew of the combat in the Weave, Kaiku was peripherally aware of the two golden ships, their outline drawn in millions of threads, that were gliding steadily closer to each other. Kaiku had guessed what the captain knew: they would not get away from this without damage and loss of life.

  By now she had the measure of these Weavers. They were young and clumsy and arrogant, making foolish mistakes which she exploited. The ships were lining up with one another, excruciatingly slow in Weave-time. Soon they would be level, and firing would commence.

  It was time to abandon caution. She sent an instruction to her Sisters, and the Weave erupted in response, a blizzard of threads lashing everywhere, random and impossible to follow. The Weavers recoiled, having never encountered this tactic before, unsure of how it might harm them.

  But it was not meant to harm; it was meant to distract. Quick and subtle as a blade, Kaiku slid towards them.

  ‘Enemy to port!’ hollered the lookout, as the hulking ship emerged from the mist. It was coming in at a distance, too far away to allow boarding, its flanks bristling with sculpted fire-cannon like gaping metal demons. It hove alongside, approaching from the opposite direction, a rapid succession of portholes and shadowy figures holding rifles. Waiting, like the sailors of the Empire, for the moment when all cannons would be face-on to their enemy.

  ‘Fire!’ came the cry from the Weaver ship, at the same time as it did from the captain of the junk; and at that moment, the entire port side of the enemy craft exploded. It heeled drastically, its cannons blasting into the water and passing beneath the keel of Kaiku’s junk. The sailors slid howling over the gunwale and into the sea. And now its unarmoured deck was presented to the junk’s artillery, which smashed it to ruin in a blitz of smoke and fire and sawdust.

  It was all over so quickly that those aboard ship could barely believe they had escaped unscathed. The Tkiurathi rifles had not fired. They watched as the wrecked boat plunged into the water, sucking down those who had survived the initial assault, and like the other two boats they had seen in ruin it slid away from them and was masked once more by the murk.

  Kaiku blinked, looked about the deck and met Tsata’s gaze with her crimson eyes.

  ‘You?’ he asked.

  ‘They should be have been more careful where they stored their ammunition,’ she said.

  And the ship sailed on, while the mist thinned around them and finally broke to a clear winter’s day. The open sea was all around, sparkling under the gaze of Nuki’s eye, and the ships of Lalyara were there, twelve of them, sailing at a swift clip towards the horizon.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Lord Protector Avun and the Weave-lord Kakre stood together on a balcony on the south face of the Imperial Keep. They were looking over the city to where the Jabaza and Kerryn met to form the Zan, in a place called the Rush. Once, on the hexagonal island in the centre, there had stood an enormous statue of Isisya, facing towards the Keep, but no more. In other times, Avun might have been glad of its loss, for he could not easily bear its accusing gaze. Today, though, he felt that it would not have troubled him. His spirits were high, and all was well.

  Even Kakre seemed pleased with him. The sight of the Weavers’ many mechanised barges gathe
ring along the rivers of the city was an impressive one indeed, as was the horde of Aberrants that were being brought from their pens underground and herded on board by the black-robed Nexuses. And this represented only the tail of the undertaking: most had already departed eastward, upstream along the Kerryn and down the Rahn. From there, the troops would skirt the Xarana Fault and loop west of Lake Azlea, and then south into the enemy’s territory, towards Saraku. The feya-kori would join them en route, six of them in total, including the two that had assaulted Lalyara several weeks ago. Those two were hardier now; they needed less time to recuperate in their pall-pits. The blight demons, it seemed, got stronger with age.

  The prelude was done. The forces of the Empire, rocked by defeats at Juraka and Zila and Lalyara, did not know where the next strike would come from. Their armies would be spread in an attempt to cover the greatest amount of ground. Avun would cut through them like a sword and strike into their heart. By the time they could get their troops to Saraku it would be too late: the Weavers would hold the line of the River Ju, cutting off the marshland cities of Yotta and Fos to be despatched by their forces in Juraka. And after a short recuperation during which they could easily hold a city like Saraku, they would strike west, and nothing the Empire had could stand against them. At best, they could scatter into guerrilla armies, dogging the Weavers’ efforts; but the Weavers would have the harvest, and the armies would be starved out and hunted down until nothing remained of them.

  It would be over then. The desert lands could not stand alone. Their fall would swiftly follow.

  Even the Weave-lord seemed happy today; or at least as happy as it was possible for such a creature to be. He was satisfied at Avun’s progress now that action he deemed worthy was being taken. He had always been impatient with Avun’s tactics, and had wanted to go in for the kill as soon as the feya-kori were first brought under their control. Avun allowed himself a wry smile. Idiots. If not for him, they would have been in a much worse situation by now.