Knight of Stars

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘Three coming, approaching Si Jo,’ she reported. ‘What’s left of my crew are spread throughout this island. With luck they’ll be ignored if they have no mage cartridges.’

  ‘Tell us where to go,’ Toil said in a brisk voice.

  The kaboto scanned around, catching Teshen’s eye briefly but whatever passed between them in that look was lost to Lynx. As she did so, slim figures raced towards them, first two then another five emerging like foxes breaking cover. They were all young, four boys and three girls, the oldest looking no more than fifteen.

  They sported the usual crew markings, the girls with long twisting braids tied with white cloth and the boys in white headscarves. Novices, Lynx guessed, but likely ones who’d been on the Si Jo shoreline. The look in their eyes suggested as much.

  ‘Your guides, one for each pair. They’ll keep you from getting lost and track the golantha.’ She paused then pointed at the water mage who’d brought them. ‘You, stay here. Start working magic – when the other boat arrives, link with the other mages and do something to attract the golantha.’

  ‘Attract them?’ the mage asked, aghast. Her hand went to the small curve of her belly and Lynx realised with a jolt she was pregnant. The mage was a round-faced woman whose pale skin and northern accent showed she was a recent arrival in the city, but she wore the Waterdancer Guild robes.

  ‘Wait, she’s got a baby,’ Lynx said, but Sanshir just shook her head.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, we’re out of time and need a mage to serve as bait. That’s you, but we’ll be the ones between it and you. If you get hurt, it’s because I’m already too dead to give a shit about anything ever again.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Lynx,’ Toil warned. ‘She’s right. Being further away doesn’t help the baby if we fail.’

  ‘I will do it,’ the mage announced before Lynx could object further. ‘I knew many who died last night. I will not hide away.’

  Sanshir nodded. ‘If it goes wrong, you can probably escape across the water anyway. Tell the rest of the mercenaries to occupy Vars Holding.’

  She pointed a little way south towards a blockish complex of buildings, piled like bricks with gaps left between each. It was the highest ground on this stretch of the shore, but dwarfed by the tor ahead.

  ‘Now for us.’

  She paused a moment and surveyed the ground to the north. There was a wide market space abutting the dock, leading to the tor that dominated their view; a lopsided hump of rock much lower than the one they’d used last night. A great avenue ran down the centre. Lynx could see lanterns had been lit within though most of the dwellings looked dark and abandoned.

  The shore side on the right was the lower – an abrupt, elongated hill that projected out to warehouses and palazzos on the shorefront – while the seaward flank bore four great shelves of streets like levels of a ziggurat. Past that was an interconnected sprawl of smaller blocks, several of which were topped with temples. Two blazed with light, great bonfires or firepits that seemed to be trying to defy the darkness, or at least its creatures.

  The sight gave Lynx a flicker of hope that the city wasn’t yet entirely cowed, but the island was largely dark and abandoned. Beneath the temples was a chaotic tangle of dark streets, cut through with raised roads and looking more like a puzzle than a place people lived.

  ‘One pair on each side of the Under-Avenue,’ Sanshir called, pointing at the road that ran right through the tor and reminded Lynx of the Duegar road they’d followed to Shadows Deep.

  ‘If it comes around the shore side, have someone fire a light bolt,’ she added to the mage. ‘It’s unlikely though, these creatures prefer the darkest places. Teshen and I will go inland into the Ve Ho maze with one pair, we’re more likely to need to move fast.’

  As she spoke more whistles came, a frenetic burst of sound that each of the Mastrunners cocked an ear to before glancing towards the tor.

  ‘Okay, Lynx and I will take the dark tunnel,’ Toil said. ‘Kas and Suth, you’re best with Teshen. Safir and Aben, you’re with us. Reft and Deern, you’re the back-up team.’

  Sanshir nodded and pointed west of where they stood, an elongated dip that was dotted with greenery. ‘The Low Gardens. Take position on the far side, you’ll get a good view of anything trying to cross.’

  Without any further instructions, Sanshir loped off with long, easy strides towards the nearest of the beacon temples. Teshen waved Kas and Suth forward and they raced after her, one of the youths trotting alongside. Another gestured to Deern, keeping a wary eye on Reft as he did so, and they set off, while the four remaining Cards headed for the tor.

  As they went, the whistles came again and their guides upped the pace without saying a word. The urgency in those sounds made the Cards match them and soon they were entering the gloom of the Under-Avenue.

  About thirty yards in, Toil slowed her pace and hissed at their guides. The avenue was ten yards high, spotted with puddles of light from oil lamps but mostly pitch black as the last of the daylight vanished. It was built for strength, not beauty, from what Lynx could see.

  The ceiling was bare and marked with sooty stains, with only the occasional patch of glowing threads they’d seen the previous evening. The click of bats echoed through the avenue. Lynx could sense more than see the flicker of movement as those or small tysarn flashed past overhead. Out of instinct they scouted the path, checking the couple of larger tunnels that led off this one, but the streets of the tor at least were empty.

  Lynx didn’t want to think about how many people were hiding in their homes, hoping to ride out the violence. The avenue was lined with shops, taverns and eateries, all shuttered or simply abandoned, while a tier of apartments hunkered above those. There was only a narrow walkway in front of the apartments and only rarely were there stairways to reach it. More often it was simply a case of steps chiselled into a sheer face.

  ‘These are empty?’ Toil asked one of their guides, a boy with a scar-twisted lip.

  He shook his head. ‘Workers, poor people,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Some go, many cannot.’

  ‘Find us some that are empty,’ she ordered. ‘We might as well try to avoid them getting killed.’

  While the guides raced up the steps to the narrow walkway above the protruding shop-fronts, Toil pulled a grenade from her jacket pocket. She set it on the rutted road, a little way towards the open air. From the red pin, Lynx could tell it was a fire bomb.

  ‘Distraction?’ Lynx guessed.

  ‘Give ’em something to sniff other than us,’ Toil confirmed. ‘Better than throwing the damn thing, anyway. Safir, Aben, you take right, we’ll be on the left. Let me take the shot unless you’re in danger, okay?’

  ‘And after?’

  ‘It’ll turn our way if it’s not already dead. Lynx gets a shot then. After that we’ll be running. You decide whether to shoot or not. Regroup with the Cards after, however you decide to play it. In the meantime, let’s keep it down in here. I’ve no idea how well those things can hear, but we’ll be pretty exposed if they notice us. You two,’ she added, pointing to the young Mastrunners with them. ‘No signals back unless we have to, okay? You can tell us what’s being passed on, but quietly, understand?’

  The pair nodded, one placing his fingers over his mouth to pantomime the order. Lynx thought about asking their names given they were risking their lives too, but instinct stopped him. Their names would make them harder to forget if this went wrong, make the guilt more real. Without names, the memories faded faster.

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Aben added with a nervous grin and banged his fist against hers. ‘Luck to you.’

  ‘Luck to us all,’ Safir added, offering Toil a florid bow. ‘Princess, Stranger – see you on the other side.’

  They parted, but before they could take their assigned sides – only twenty yards apart but immediately feeling like there was a gulf between them – more whistles were relayed from behind.

  ‘The boat is come,’ their guide
whispered.

  Toil nodded to acknowledge that before the young man took a quick run up at the nearest wall. There was no path that Lynx could see, aside from the steps that he ignored entirely. Apparently there were enough footholds that the Mastrunner could do it without needing his hands.

  Lynx and Toil didn’t attempt to follow, instead hauling themselves up the chiselled steps to join him on the walkway above. There they waited, looking along the empty tunnel then inspecting their options. After a while spent in quiet contemplation of the task ahead, another signal was passed down.

  ‘On Xi Le shore,’ the young boy hissed.

  There was fear in his eyes now, his voice wavering. Lynx could tell he was reliving the moments when the golantha last reached that shore and, awkwardly, he reached out and squeezed the kid’s shoulder.

  ‘Time they paid for it,’ he said. The young man just blinked at him and gave a curt nod before trotting off down the walkway. He wasn’t running now – Xi Le was a big island and the golantha wouldn’t yet be making a beeline for the Cards. They had a few minutes at least. Time enough to check out some more of the tunnel and make sure they weren’t going to get any surprises.

  They didn’t walk the full length of the tunnel, just enough to be certain that there was nowhere for anything to pop out unexpectedly from. Whether or not the golantha entered at the far end or elsewhere, assuming it did so at all of course, they’d see it coming.

  ‘Hold here,’ Toil said after they retraced their steps almost to where the grenade sat. ‘This looks like what we want.’

  Lynx looked around. There was a narrow path cut through the rock at right angles to the main avenue. There would be little more than shoulder-width for him there, the tunnel very faintly lit by the hanging threads of whatever insect it was they’d tamed here. Still, it was too dark and narrow for Lynx’s liking and he immediately backed away.

  ‘No, no I don’t think so,’ he muttered, staring at the elong­ated tomb.

  ‘You’ve got a little time to get used to it,’ Toil hissed. ‘I’m sorry, but there won’t be any other escape path bigger than this.’

  ‘Maybe I should go swap with Deern,’ Lynx replied, edging towards the steps. ‘Yeah, that’s a better idea.’

  ‘Odds on Deern knifes me in the back, first chance he gets,’ she replied conversationally, setting her mage-gun carefully down and taking hold of Lynx’s jacket. She brought her face right up to his to force him to take his eyes off the narrow path.

  ‘Look at me, Lynx. Focus.’

  He tried to, but the tunnel was a shifting, looming mass of darkness behind and his heart started to boom in his ears. ‘I …’

  ‘You can do this. There’s no time to switch and I need you beside me.’

  ‘I don’t think I can.’

  She kissed him, just softly. ‘Yes you can. You’re stronger than this.’

  He shook his head, fighting the urge to rip her hands off him and shove Toil away. His hands tightened into fists as spots of light began to burst across his eyes, but Toil just continued to talk in a calm voice – relaxing her grip on him as though seeing what he fought. Instead of holding him, she rested her palms on his chest, letting them rise and fall as he took quick breaths.

  ‘Not sure I am,’ Lynx said in a small voice, his throat so tight he could hardly breathe.

  ‘Yes you are – not for your own sake maybe, but you are. You won’t let others down even if it breaks you. This much I know.’

  ‘Finding it hard to even stay upright,’ Lynx gasped, ‘let alone think about others.’

  ‘Thinking’s not what you need,’ Toil hissed, glancing over her shoulder. ‘This thing is coming to kill us. Your body knows what it needs to do.’

  Distantly, Lynx heard the sound of running feet, but he couldn’t connect that to anything real. There was the faint smell of Toil, sweat and night jasmine, overlaying the stink of the city. That stirred a distant part of his mind, but the darkness intruded on it all. It swarmed forward, swamped his senses until Toil was just a dim shape moving in front of him. For a moment he couldn’t even hear her, but then she slapped him across the cheek and a flare of white-hot anger surged through him.

  ‘Focus!’ she hissed as loudly as she could. ‘Damn the tunnel then, we’ll find another way out. Breathe, Lynx! It’s coming!’

  ‘I …’

  He tried to say more, but his throat was so tight it came out as a growl. The sound itself made him stop, hesitate and see himself once more. His right hand was clamped around Toil’s arm, knuckles white and suddenly he could see the grip was hurting even her. With an effort Lynx unpeeled himself and sank to his knees, panting.

  ‘Gods, man,’ Toil said, rubbing her arm as she knelt at his side. ‘I forget how strong you are, when you let yourself be.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he slurred, trying to still his shaky hands.

  ‘Worry about that another time.’ She looked back again and fetched up her mage-gun. ‘Hey, Lynx.’

  He managed to look up, the anger still bubbling inside but at the moment it was only the balance between that and blind terror keeping him upright.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That thing you had a few days back, in the market before the siege. Fried squid was it?’

  ‘I …’

  She nudged him with her arm and slipped his long gun from its place on his shoulder. ‘Come on, think. Squid?’

  ‘Yeah, squid.’

  ‘What did it taste like?’

  ‘Um. Hot. Really hot. Made my teeth ache.’

  ‘Breadcrumbs?’

  He shook his head. ‘Dunno what it was, not bread, not batter. Sweet though. Crunchy.’

  ‘Smoky too,’ she said. ‘I could smell it on you when I took you to bed. Taste it on your tongue, in your sweat.’

  Lynx nodded.

  ‘We should go get more of that. What do you say, tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah, tomorrow. Fried potatoes, squid, bread soaked in garlic oil. What do you say?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, slightly drunkenly. ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Then we better make it to tomorrow.’ Her voice took on a more commanding edge. ‘So take hold of your fucking gun and load it, soldier.’

  His hands moved even as his brain wallowed in treacle. Breech clicked open, one hand sliding down to flip open the cartridge case lid. A moment’s hesitation at the unfamil­iar emptiness of the case, the smooth glyph-less top of the cartridge. Then he pulled it out and slid it home, snapping the breech shut a moment after Toil did the same.

  ‘Here it comes,’ she whispered, nodding towards an open doorway nearby. ‘You stay here.’

  Lynx lay flat on the walkway, muzzle over the edge, while Toil advanced to the doorway and settled inside. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of movement as the others took up firing positions, but his attention was on the shape advancing swiftly through the gloom.

  It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Lynx guessed it wasn’t the one that had killed Lastani. Rogue flashes of green fluttered the length of its body, muted by the great plates of armour, but it looked uniformly dark and uninjured. Its legs seemed to ripple forwards in groups as it walked, antennae twitching but showing little wariness. Lynx’s heart lurched suddenly as the golantha paused and turned to the far side of the avenue.

  There was a lamp burning above what Lynx guessed was a tavern. He could see the faint outlines of benches and tables before they were scattered by the golantha moving. It raised itself up, mandibles and front legs hooked on to the walkway while it quested forward with flicks of the feathery glow. After a short while it slipped back down, satisfied there was nothing there, and continued on towards them.

  Lynx felt his guts clamp tight. The golantha moved with remarkable speed and it was so flexible it could whip its whole huge body from one side of the avenue to the other in a heartbeat. Then it paused again and flicked its antennae directly forward, down the rough surface of the road. Ghostly trails of gr
een danced out through the air and vanished. Almost immediately it started up again, moving faster and with clear intent.

  Lynx fought the urge to turn his head and check where the grenade had been left. It didn’t matter. Either the thing would end up dead in their sights or it’d sense their handful of cartridges and attack. They were clearly not blind, so any movement might catch its attention.

  Hardly daring to breathe, Lynx watched the huge creature glide forward. Twenty yards away, ten. Then it was almost level with them, armoured back a few yards away, while the golantha’s legs were almost close enough to touch with his gun muzzle.

  Toil swung her mage-gun around, clearly not wanting to move until it was too close to miss. The golantha twitched and coiled back as she did so, turning to face them just as she pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. For a moment the world went black around Lynx as panic enveloped him. Toil looked down at her gun, aghast, cocked and pulled the trigger again. Still nothing. Then the golantha was rearing up, alive to the danger and ready to strike. The air blossomed sickly green, illuminating every sharp angle of its body and huge pincers. It was all the jolt Lynx needed. He rolled and brought his gun around, no time to think about whether it would work.

  He fired.

  Chapter 42

  The recoil slammed him backwards. A roiling eruption of darkness tore from the mage-gun and hit the golantha in its side, just below the head. Something exploded, green light flashing wildly as the creature coiled under the impact. The sound of the shot was muted, deeper than the boom of an earther, but one Lynx felt jangle through his bones.

  Where the shot had hit it, the very air looked fractured – the glow of the golantha’s strange light ripped apart. The golantha let out a terrible hissing screech, louder than the gunshot even, and thrashed as a strange hushing sound filled the air. On the far side Lynx heard shouts. He couldn’t make out the meaning before another gunshot went off and the darkness smashed into its plated back like a grenade.