“I don't care,” Baynvyn said, pushing back to his feet. He was slower without Epalette, but he was by no means slow. His rifle was still slung over his shoulder, and he made a motion as if to go for it, but that was all. “This is your city, as you said, and thus your problem. I was hired to do a job.” He smiled, blue blood dark against his white teeth, hand poised near the gun. “You're just a bonus for me.”
“Oh?” Cyrus brought Epalette forward, like a second, smaller sword. Keenly felt was the loss of Ferocis in all this. Even more: You should have been with us for this, Vara.
“You cannot believe that you can be the spark that will light this city aflame,” Baynvyn said, breathing hard between bloody lips as he circled with Cyrus, the warrior's shadow steps always watched by his son. Baynvyn reached the edge of the parapet on the dockyards side and ceased his circling, stopping at the edge. “Or that this wild conflagration you seek to unleash will do anything but burn your beloved city to ashes?”
Cyrus cocked his head, though no one could see it, and smiled. “If not me...who? If not now, when? Reikonos will be free.”
“Reikonos will be a cinder,” Baynvyn said, his expression dark. “You will not free it.”
“Agree to disagree,” Cyrus said, and made a motion toward Baynvyn, mostly to see what he would do.
The dark elf flipped over the parapets and disappeared. Cyrus eased toward the edge, sparing only a glance backward to ensure that his battle was won. Indeed, here it was, only his Watchmen were now left on their feet, this section of the wall utterly subdued. No Machine thugs or loyalists ran up the stairs or emerged from the towers nearby.
Looking over the edge, he saw Baynvyn below, letting loose of a rope. He'd picked his spot to jump with care, then; Cyrus hadn't even noticed it there. Their eyes met, though he was sure that his son could not see him with the cloak of Epalette upon him. Still, Baynvyn stared, brow crooked in that same smoldering anger, until finally the dark elf turned and ran swiftly behind two airships, disappearing into the dockyards below.
The wall was won.
Chapter 65
Alaric
The killing blow was coming, and soon, with nothing but the last swing of Qualleron separating Alaric from sure death, sure and certain to–
“You dropped this, sir.”
Alaric pried his eyes open; he hadn't even known he'd shut them. Whether from the scything pain radiating down his arm as surely as if it had been severed, or mere fear at the blow he was certain was to fall, he'd squinted them shut. Once they were open, he chided, rebuked himself. It was a small act of cowardice in the face of overwhelming force, and yet he'd done it nonetheless. For shame.
Qualleron, though, had Aterum extended to him. The troll had daintily, by the tip, extended the sword so the hilt was pointed at Alaric's chest. He had spoken, indeed, and now waited, his own blade at low rest, in one hand, while he proffered Alaric's sword back to him with the other.
“Thank you,” Alaric said, uncertain what else to say. He took Aterum by the hilt and Qualleron released his hold. Alaric waited, expecting – well, the troll's blade to fall on him.
It did not come; instead, Qualleron took a step back. “Take a moment to recompose yourself, if you need. I was perhaps too harsh upon your arm just now. In the madness of great battle, I forgot my own strength. Rest, and come back at me with all you have when you feel ready.”
Alaric pushed to his feet, mouthing a healing spell that did little to assuage the pain running down his arm. Still, he was able to clench his fist a moment later, so it had done something. Healed broken bones, perhaps, or mended strained joints. He took up the weight of Aterum, muttering another healing spell. This did a little more, and he swung it experimentally.
“Very good!” Qualleron bellowed with joy. “I see–” His countenance turned fearsome in a moment, and he leapt at Alaric.
Alaric barely had time to sidestep and pull up his guard before the troll was upon him. Qualleron's sweaty scent washed over him like a flood into his senses, the momentum of the creature bearing down like a runaway wagon, the horses gone mad and astray, stopping for nothing–
Except Qualleron did stop, inches away from Alaric, in fact. There was a sound behind him, the troll's arm extended neatly over him, a guttural noise coming from back there–
Alaric spun, and found the most curious sight greeting him–
Qualleron's broad blade had speared a Machine thug squarely through the chest. The man was gasping, sliding down the wide blade, which split him from chest to crotch. The troll pulled it free, then moved a foot around Alaric, kicking the carcass aside. “If you should lose your footing upon the ichor, rest assured I shall not press my advantage until you are firmly back on your feet,” the troll said, taking a few steps back. “I would not wish to engage in such ignominious tactics in the midst of such honorable battle with such an esteemed and well-met foe.” The troll planted his blade between the cobblestones, putting one hand on each side of the sword guard. “Take your time. Make ready.”
“Truly,” Alaric said, straightening up with another mouthed spell. “You are a rare soul, Qualleron. I regret that we have met in opposition, when you would be among the worthiest allies I have ever met.”
Qualleron wagged a thick finger at Alaric. “Yet it must be thus, for what value would my honor be if I should abandon my sworn contract to the Lord Protector of this city merely because I perceived his opponents more honorable? Forever, it would be a betrayal of all loyalties the moment a more principled employer came along.”
“Truly,” Alaric said. “But a shame, nonetheless.”
Qualleron's big eyes flickered. “Indeed. But life is comprised of many regrets, especially for those who do not partake of honorable, all-out battle when it crosses their path.” He hefted his mighty blade once more. “Do you stand ready, Alaric Garaunt?”
“Yes,” Alaric said, “but I must make mention of one thing. I have the ability of magic at my disposal. I have not employed it, because you have been so honorable. If you wish to keep this strictly a sword fight, I will only use it to heal myself in moments such as this.”
Qualleron's eyebrow shot up. “Magics?” He settled into a brief silence. “You need an advantage, for my strength is much for you to overcome, even with your power. You should use this magic – with honor, of course.”
“Always,” Alaric said, bowing his head toward the troll.
Qualleron let out a bellow of pleasure. “Then let us continue – and may the best of us win!” And he struck down, meeting Aterum once more as the clang resounded through the night.
Chapter 66
Vaste
Ahead, it was plenty obvious where Alaric was. He was squarely in the midst of a battle, a large circle opened up 'round him and his opponent – Qualleron, the troll standing head and shoulders above everyone else. A wide margin surrounded them both, City Watch and Machine thugs giving them plenty of room for their fight. In fact, even at this distance, Vaste could see the lesser combatants ceasing their own fights and throwing themselves out of the way to avoid the broad strokes of Qualleron's sword flashing in the fire-lit night.
“I admire you, Alaric!” Qualleron bellowed to the heavens. “You and your kind are the sort of souls I thought were not left in this world! This battle will be spoken of among my order from now until the end of times.”
Vaste did not catch Alaric's reply, for it was somewhat more muted than the shouts of a happy troll. For his part, Vaste did not consider this to be a very fair fight for Alaric, but a force blast spell then sent Qualleron to his face, and convinced Vaste that his attentions were probably best directed elsewhere lest he find himself once more ill-equipped to deal with that swinging meat cleaver of Qualleron's.
“Do you hear that sound?” Shirri asked, coming up behind him.
“Yes,” Pamyra said, breathing just a bit harder than her daughter. “Like insects.”
Vaste paused. He heard nothing other than the grunts of the battle rejo
ined, Qualleron already back on his feet and shouting glories at Alaric, who was fighting the bastard back – somehow. Magic, probably. “I don't hear anything but troll grunting and the occasional human dying at the end of a blade or club. What—”
Then he heard it.
Then he saw it. Or rather...them.
They swept out of the heavens above like mechanical insects, chittering wildly as they came. One of them unleashed, sounds of gunfire spraying out of it as it hosed down a City Watchman, his body jerking wildly in the billowing orange flames cast by a burning ship nearby.
“What the hell is that?” Vaste asked, the dying screams of the man fading into the glowing green light of the afterlife that only he could see. He was sucked past in a blur, his soul ripped away from his body as though snagged by a rope attached to an airship. It jerked in the direction of the Citadel, and he was gone, screams and all, a moment later. “Also, I am now certain Malpravus survived our encounter at the tower. If there were any doubts.”
“I didn't doubt,” Pamyra offered, forehead knotted in concentration as a half dozen of those machines came rattling out of the heavens. She lifted her hands and a force blast knocked them out of their tight formation. Three smashed into a nearby airship, shattering. The others, well...they seemed to recover, wobbling and turning like birds who'd been confronted with prey in every direction.
“What are these foul things?” Vaste asked as another let loose a chittering sound of bullets. One struck a City Watchman in the leg and he screamed, dropping to his knees. No one followed up with a coup de grace, though, because even the Machine thugs were diving away from him to avoid being hit by the fire of the little pests.
“Clockworks,” Shirri said tightly. “An Azwill gnomish contraption.”
“Looks like magic to me,” Vaste said as one of the strays wobbled around and turned...toward him. It buzzed his way.
“Yes, magic like airships,” Shirri said, then ducked out of the path of another that unleashed wobbly fire at her. Specks of stone blasted from the ground scattered at them, peppering Vaste's robe. “It's technology, fool!”
“The hell it is,” Vaste muttered as the clockwork came buzzing at him. He lifted a hand, twisting Letum around. If this failed, he would duck out of the way, hopefully before it fired at him...
With a whisper, he cast a spell, pointing it right at the machine–
A stutter and a whine, and the clockwork plunged as though he'd knocked all the gears out of it, though he hadn't even touched it at all. It flipped toward him and Vaste stepped aside, raising up Letum, and swatted it–
The clockwork flew through the air, dead before he'd even hit it, and shattered to spare parts against the side of the nearest ship.
Shirri watched him from the ground, her robes dirty from the fall. “What...what did you do?”
“Cessation spell,” Vaste said, offering her the end of his staff. She took it and he hauled her up. “I know magic when I see it.”
Shirri narrowed her eyes suspiciously, then looked up. A field of a dozen clockworks were whirling overhead, picking targets, circling. They looked ready to dive, like mechanical hawks. She shoved a hand skyward, muttered a few syllables, and—
The clockworks dropped, crashing into the stone pathways between ships and, in one unfortunate case, beaning a City Watchman who was then stabbed through the shoulder by the Machine thug he was fighting.
“Ouch! Oh! I'm sorry!” Shirri called, hands glowing to throw a healing spell in the direction of the beleaguered Watchman. Then she looked up at the clear skies, the clockworks now gone. “Still...”
“Still, I remain a master of magic,” Vaste said, sweeping Letum's tip up to faux-polish it against his robes. “It's all right, elf-child. You will learn the secrets of my greatness in time.” He pointed his staff in the direction of Alaric's battle, still raging against Qualleron. “Now if you'll excuse me, my greatness is needed elsewhere. Try not to muddle things up too much while I'm gone, will you?”
The look on her face was priceless, really. Was there anything so enjoyable as rubbing an elf's – even a half-elf's – face in the fact you were right?
Chapter 67
Curatio
“Where has this been all my life, I say!” Curatio shouted to the heavens. No one heard him over the rattling hell-thunder of the gatling cannon as he swept it over the Machine thugs that had been unloading an entire cargo of a ship until he'd rolled up. A few dead bodies at the base of the plank told Curatio that, indeed, these Machine thugs had no mercy for those who resisted. But they were cowards, unsurprisingly. Cowards all. Which was why it plagued him little to watch the fire of the gatling cannon roll over them as they cast aside their stolen goods, swept before him like the wheat before the thresher.
As with the others, this encounter did not last particularly long. He swept the fire where he could, and did so until a ship's master crept down the plank once he'd halted fire. The man was clearly not of the Machine, and his crew followed shortly thereafter. They looked beaten, but they had two Machine thugs in their charge.
“Prisoners?” one of the City Watch shouted to Curatio over the ringing in his ears.
He almost answered in the negative, but stopped himself just in time. Mercy. Right. “Prisoners,” he agreed, nodding to them to get down there and deal with it. They did so.
“I'm starting to worry about your state of mind!” Guy shouted at him once he was back inside the truck cab. He was barely audible over the ringing in Curatio's ears. “No one should get this much enjoyment out of killing people!”
“I enjoyed killing people quite a bit more in my youth,” Curatio replied, top of his lungs. “I was a gladiator in the arena back then, of course. I thought I'd put it past me.” He frowned. “But there is something in war, in righteous anger, that brings out this flush in my skin, this steadiness in my hand. It compels me forward, into action, again and again.” He pushed down upon the pedal and felt the thundering of the machinery as the truck moved once more. Down the row, he could see flames billowing out of an airship on fire. “I suppose I don't change any more than any other man, at the core. When peace comes, I shall subsume this blood thirst, and become civilized once more. But for now...” He felt his lips strain, grim, almost a smile but not quite. “It behooves us if I wipe our enemies out to nearly the last.” Casting a look at Guy. “Yes?”
Guy's face was frozen in a pained rictus, eyes wide, lips quivering. “I don't find any joy in any of this at all. Not one bit.”
Curatio raised an eyebrow to that. His hearing seemed to be returned, at least a little, for Guy's shout had sounded like shout. “Then perhaps there's hope that you're a better man than I. Or a coward. I wouldn't care to speculate as to which it is.”
Guy's face twisted again. “I'm not sure comparing myself to you and coming out the more favorable is much of a win for me. Seeing that many men gunned down in the streets of the dockyards? Not a high point in my life. Especially since I'm sitting here up front while you're back there shooting, making me target number one if someone decides to fire back, yeah?”
“Well, you're certainly not running away from that assumption you're a coward,” Curatio said dryly.
“And you're not going to convince anyone you're a great man filling others with great holes,” Guy said.
“There is little nobility in war, Guy,” Curatio said. “Trust one who has seen it more times than I care to remember. For that is what this is; the struggle of men to assert their right to live against another who deems them unworthy of the food to subsist. All conflicts come down to this eventually, no matter how high-minded they might start. It's always about who you favor and who you hate.”
“I'm starting to see that,” Guy said, “but I'm also to feel that hate breathing down my neck. And I don't much care for it.”
“Few do,” Curatio said. The flames of the burning ship were getting closer. Black smoke billowed in great clouds out of it, and he hoped that the dry air would not carry embers
to a nearby ship. An entire yard of them, after all, might make for good tinder if things got out of hand. “Yet how you steer yourself through these matters defines your character. You need not embrace the feral savagery you see from me in order to carve out some decency for yourself. It's hardly a fair war, as currently structured. On one side you have much of the guards and armies and leader of this city, with all the food and all the ability to get food bottled up. On the other...us and whatever we can scrounge.” He shot Guy a look. “Surely even you, struggling as you are with all you're seeing, possess the moral clarity to realize that we are in the right here, regardless of what you think of my methods.”
Guy was quiet for a long moment, the squeal of the brakes overpowering that underwater sensation that filled Curatio's head. “Maybe,” Guy finally admitted, a bit stingy.
“Oh ho, 'maybe'!” Curatio hooted. “Are you not a man who ran with the Machine? Who admitted to doing truly terribly things in their employ?”
“I never did anything like this,” Guy said.
“If you had,” Curatio said, turning a cold gaze upon him, “perhaps your former friends would have gotten the notion that preying on the innocent was a poor idea much earlier than this. And innocent people wouldn't be poised to starve now.” With that, he turned his hard gaze on the road ahead. A picture began to form out of the darkness – and he was fairly certain it centered on a certain armor-clad knight with a bucket helm standing athwart the largest troll Curatio had ever seen.
Chapter 68
Alaric
“Will you yield?” Qualleron asked, panting. He'd stepped back to ask the question, sword at his side in this impromptu moment of truce.
Alaric took the truce and did not press his attack. His arm ached in all the places it had before, but his grip was still strong. The occasional force blast spell had done wonders in keeping Qualleron off balance and off him as compared to when he'd been nearly overrun moments before. “I do not yield, no.”
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