by Anthony Ryan
She allowed the lead trooper to pass beneath unmolested; dispatching him wouldn’t have been especially difficult but the real danger lay in the squadron as a whole. She voiced a soft sigh of frustration upon glancing at the Spider and the parlous state of product remaining in the vials. Only a quarter-vial of Green remained and all the Black gone. Fortunately, she still retained nearly half a vial of Red, and another four of Jermayah’s delightful munitions.
She slotted a Redball into the Whisper’s top barrel and waited, fingers poised over the Spider’s buttons as the cavalry troopers came closer. Only when the last trooper had passed beneath the branch did she inject all her remaining Green along with half the Red. The disorienting effect was immediate and only barely suppressed, her fatigue having sapped her concentration somewhat. Despite the sudden nausea she managed to keep her gun arm steady as she trained the Whisper on the middle of the troop and lit the Redball.
The munition impacted on the upper back of a trooper, birthing a satisfyingly large explosion. The unfortunate Corvantine was killed outright, along with his horse, whilst two of his comrades were sent tumbling from their saddles to writhe screaming in a welter of flame. Lizanne shot another as he attempted to control his bucking mount, then flinched as a carbine bullet smacked into the branch barely a foot to her right. Her Green-boosted eyes fixed on the source immediately; the veteran lead scout, galloping back along the trail at full pelt, carbine at his shoulder as he skilfully worked the lever for a second shot.
Lizanne leapt from the branch, tumbling end over end to land amidst the still-rearing horses as the scout’s next shot cut the air above her head. She shot down two more troopers in quick succession, then ducked as a third swung at her with a sabre, the tip of the blade coming close enough to snick a few hairs from her flailing pony-tail. He proved an annoyingly adept horseman, keeping his mount in check and dancing it closer, sabre drawn back for a killing thrust whilst he kept low behind the horse’s neck to prevent her putting a bullet into his forehead. Lizanne unleashed the Red in a single, instinctive blast. The horse’s scream choked off as the heat ate through its throat in an instant, the rider faring little better. His uniform, skin and much of his bone turned to ash. The ghastly remnant of horse and rider, one-half flesh the other a charred ruin, collapsed as Lizanne scrambled away and whirled to face the still-charging veteran.
He was nearly upon her now, weathered face set in a mask of furious triumph behind his levelled carbine. Lizanne’s gun hand came up in a blur, exhausting her reserves of Green in a reflexive aim-and-fire motion of such speed and accuracy no non-Blessed could ever be expected to match it. The bullet took the scout in the eye just as his finger tightened on the carbine’s trigger, the shot going wide as he tumbled lifeless from the saddle.
Lizanne staggered amidst the carnage she had created, all but a few dregs of product in her veins as she scanned for more targets, finding only dead and dying. She sagged, relief and exhaustion mingling to bring forth an unusual and unfamiliar sound from her throat. It took a moment’s puzzled reflection to recognise it as a sob. How many years since that happened? she wondered, thumbing a tear from her eye as the sob turned into a rueful laugh.
All humour abruptly vanished at the arrival of a fresh tumult of galloping horses and she found herself voicing a weary groan at the sight of another cavalry troop approaching along the trail. They came on at a cautious canter, halting a good fifty yards short to survey the smoking ruin of their comrades. From the exchange of wary glances she concluded they had deduced her nature, but would also soon divine the fact that she was all but out of product. She sighed, taking a firmer grip on the Whisper and drawing the stolen Cadre revolver from the pocket of her overalls. Getting to her feet she stood with both weapons held at her sides, head cocked in expectation.
The cavalrymen exchanged a few more wary glances before one gave an impatient bark of command, a sergeant from the bullish tone of authority in his voice. In response the troopers all drew their carbines from the scabbards on the saddles and spread out, each taking careful aim as they moved closer in a slow walk. Lizanne thought she might be able to get two before they shot her down and scanned their line, choosing which one to kill. She chose the sergeant, a wiry fellow as cavalrymen often were, his lean features grim and eyes dark behind the sights of his weapon. She was raising both pistols when the sergeant’s face disappeared in a red-and-white cloud of sundered flesh and powdered bone.
Gunfire erupted from the jungle to the trooper’s right, at least twenty weapons firing at once, a mix of carbines, shotguns and longrifles judging by the discordant mix of cracks and booms. The troopers withered under the weight of fire, none managing to loose off a single shot in response before they were brought down. Impressive marksmanship, Lizanne thought, noting the empty saddles on the mostly unscathed horses as they circled about their fallen riders, whinnying in alarm.
A chilling wave of exhaustion swept through her and she found herself on her knees once more, arms sagging to rest her pistols in the mud. “You’re alive!” She raised her lolling head to find Tekela running towards her, Major Arberus close behind. “I knew you would be!” Lizanne groaned as the girl crushed herself against her.
“Miss Lethridge?” a voice asked in a gruff Old Colonial accent.
Lizanne’s gaze went to the stocky figure standing next to Arberus, a woman of middling years with a shotgun resting in the crook of her green-leather-clad arm. Beyond her Lizanne could see other figures in dusters moving amongst the Corvantine dead and crouching to retrieve any valuables or weapons with practised efficiency.
“Griseld Flaxknot,” the woman introduced herself, touching a finger to the rim of her broad-brimmed hat. “Captain of the Chainmasters Independent Contractor Company. Madame Bondersil is very keen for us to see you home.”
—
She woke to the jangling of chains, her befuddled mind instantly conjuring visions of a Corvantine torture chamber. The smugglers, the jungle, all a dream . . . The dress-maker captured me in Morsvale . . .
“Krista?” Tekela’s breath was soft on her ear, coaxing her back to awareness. Lizanne groaned and forced her eyes fully open, finding the girl’s face poised above hers, brow bunched in concern. Something hard jolted beneath Lizanne’s back and she realised they were in motion, her eyes going to the swaying chains above Tekela’s head.
“Drake-catcher’s wagon,” she realised aloud.
“Yes.” Tekela helped her into a sitting position, resting her against the thick iron bars that formed the wagon’s walls. Major Arberus sat at the far end of the wagon, gazing out at the mounted Contractors riding alongside. Lizanne noted that his rifle was gone.
“They wouldn’t let us stop,” Tekela went on. “Even though there was no waking you. Just piled us into this thing and set off.”
“How long?”
“Two days. I . . . did wonder if you were ever going to wake.”
Lizanne’s tongue scraped around the inside of her mouth, making her grimace at the acrid dryness of it. “Water, please.”
Tekela held a canteen to her lips, though Lizanne soon took it from her, holding it up and gulping down the blessed contents in convulsive heaves. Intense use of product often had unpleasant side-effects, dehydration and fatigue chief amongst them, though she couldn’t recall experiencing such a profound reaction before now. Her limbs felt like benumbed rubber and there seemed to be an iron bar skewered through her skull from temple to temple. “Lizanne,” she said, finally lowering the canteen and wiping a weak hand across her mouth.
“What?” Tekela asked.
“My name. Lizanne Lethridge.”
She saw Arberus shift at that, shooting her a guarded glance that told of instant recognition. A famous family can be a disadvantage in certain occupations, she knew, but felt the girl deserved to know the name of her self-appointed guardian. She turned to her, switching to Mandinorian. “You know this
language?”
Tekela gave a half nod, her reply faltering and heavily accented. “It was the one . . . lesson Father would not . . . allow me to . . .” She fumbled for the right word.
“Shirk?” Lizanne suggested.
Tekela smiled and nodded. “I . . . am not . . . fluent.”
“That will change.” Lizanne raised herself up farther, gazing out at the passing country. The jungle was thinner now and the trees not so tall, meaning they were nearing the partially settled bush-country south of Carvenport. “It’s likely to be all you’ll speak for many years to come.”
—
They passed by several homesteads before nightfall, one-storey houses with wide, sloping roofs surrounded by a clutch of barns and corrals. All were abandoned, the livestock gone or recently slaughtered. The Chainmasters reported all wells had been spoiled with animal carcasses and any harvested crops either left to rot or deliberately burned.
“Company orders,” Captain Flaxknot commented when they stopped for the night. She had kept them moving until the sun finally dipped below the horizon, posting guards in a tight perimeter and sending two of her marksmen to watch the southern approaches. “Don’t wanna leave nothing for the Corvantines. Recall my grandpap saying he saw the same thing happen once, musta’ been eighty years ago. Guess that makes this, what, the Third Corvantine War?”
“Fourth,” Lizanne said. “Not counting the occasional skirmish in between.”
The captain turned a hard-eyed gaze on Major Arberus. “Guess they never tire of getting beat.”
“I have a feeling this will be the last one,” Lizanne said, her thoughts returning to Grand Marshal Morradin and the impossibly swift frigate she had destroyed. The Ironship Syndicate had made itself perhaps the most powerful organisation in the world on the basis of innovation, but in the process had burdened itself with an ever-more-complex and extensive bureaucracy and a Board given to tortuous deliberation. The Corvantines had no Board; they had the Emperor. Scion of an erratic and often corrupt line he may have been, but apparently possessed of sufficient wit and singular vision to at least put the corporate world on the back foot within a few days of launching his grand military gambit. Much depended on the Board’s willingness to adapt and throw off deeply enshrined company regulations. Somehow, she doubted the process would be anything but a long and painful one.
Unless Madame’s scheme comes to fruition, she reminded herself. Perhaps her obsession will save us after all.
A faint, plaintive shriek echoed from the tree-line to the south, Captain Flaxknot instantly coming to her feet in response, along with every Contractor in sight. Lizanne was concerned by the expression on the woman’s face, a mix of deep surprise and unaccustomed fear. “Can’t be,” she heard her whisper.
“What . . . ?” Lizanne began, only to be waved to silence. Flaxknot moved to the camp’s south-facing flank, beckoning one of the Chainmasters to her side, a sturdy young man with a similarly shaped nose to his captain’s.
“You heard it?” she asked.
“We all did, Ma,” he replied, Lizanne gauging his expression as even more fearful than his mother’s. “Weren’t no phantom. What in the Travail can it be doing here?”
A bright, expanding mushroom of flame erupted in the trees a half mile to the south, lighting up the country as it ascended into the air. Another shriek sounded as the flames faded, louder this time and possessed of an unmistakable note of triumph. Some trees continued to burn bright enough to reveal the sight of men and horses running, all of them aflame.
“What they always do,” Flaxknot said. “Hunt and kill.”
“Greens?” Lizanne asked, moving to join the captain.
“Wrong call,” she replied without turning, her eyes reflecting the flames. “Too much fire all at once. We just witnessed a Red fry up a company o’ Corvantines. Guessing they picked up our trail and were angling to creep up on the camp in the darkness.”
“It saved . . . us?” Tekela asked in her broken Mandinorian.
This made Flaxknot turn and regard the girl with an amused twist to her mouth. “Surely, young miss. Outta the goodness of its heart, no doubt.” The captain strode to her horse, voice raised in command, “Saddle up! We’re moving out. No more stops till we make the city.”
—
True to her word, Captain Flaxknot allowed no rests and they moved through the darkened bush with the aid of a few torches, pressing on without pause come daybreak until the hazy mass of Carvenport appeared on the northern horizon. Lizanne was initially puzzled by the haze. Carvenport’s atmosphere was never as polluted as Morsvale’s, but as they drew closer she saw that it was in fact dust. It rose in a fine, grainy mist, born from the labour of at least a thousand people hard at work amidst a network of newly dug trenches, spades and picks rising and falling with urgent energy. A troop of mounted Protectorate soldiers soon emerged from the brown fog to greet them, the presence of three riderless horses indicating their arrival had been expected.
“Madame Bondersil requests you join her at the Academy, miss,” the lieutenant in charge told Lizanne, hand quivering a little as he snapped off a precise salute. “Your companions, also.”
“My thanks for your diligent care, Captain,” Lizanne told Flaxknot as she climbed into the saddle, gesturing for Tekela to follow suit.
“Never failed to fulfil a contract,” the woman replied. She glanced back at the bush country, her unease evident in the way she flapped her hat against her thigh. “You be sure to tell her what we saw,” she said, turning back to Lizanne. “The Red last night . . . It was all wrong, a thing that shouldn’t be. I suspect we got more than Corvantine trouble at our door.”
“I’ll tell her,” Lizanne promised. She tightened the pack’s straps across her shoulders, feeling the weight of the device shift against her back and recalling the black web infecting Madame’s mindscape. Though I doubt if she truly cares a damn for anything else just now.
“I’ve never ridden,” Tekela was saying, still unmounted and eyeing the tall war-horse with some trepidation.
“It’s easy,” Arberus said, taking hold of her waist and lifting her onto the horse’s back. “All you have to do is try not to fall off.”
As they made their way towards the city Lizanne soon gained an appreciation for the extent of the fortifications. It appeared every Carvenport resident was now engaged in digging trenches, from stevedores to managers, labourers and accountants. All hands had either answered the call to work in the city’s defence or, judging by the sullen expressions of a few, been pressed to the task against their will. The speed with which the entrenchments had been constructed was partly explained by the presence of several Blood-blessed. Some toiled away at the earth with Green-fuelled industry whilst others shifted great stacks of sandbags with the aid of Black.
“Morradin will have to spend two thousand lives at least to take this place,” Arberus commented as they came to the final set of breastworks. An interlinked line of artillery emplacements had been constructed close to the walls, all raised to afford clear fields of fire for miles around, each one connected to its neighbour by a zig-zig line of trenches, some already manned by Protectorate infantry.
“Do you expect that to dissuade him?” Lizanne asked.
“On the first day of Cortanza he sent four thousand men to die in a diversionary attack so he could advance his guns a bare fifty yards. On the second day, another twelve thousand died in a frontal assault against the rebel centre. Apparently, he still sleeps soundly every night and enjoys a hearty breakfast on waking. Make no mistake, Miss Lethridge, whatever the cost, Morradin will take this city.”
—
Madame Bondersil’s hands trembled a little as she rested them on the solargraph, a thin sigh escaping her lips, eyes rapt and unwavering as she drank in every cog and lever. “Have you attempted to activate it?” they asked Lizanne. They were in her office
at the Academy, now transformed into a de facto military headquarters as the Board had been quick to name Madame as Executive Manager of the Arradsian Holdings. It was a rarely used position, affording near-dictatorial powers to the holder and therefore only employed in times of crisis. The fact that so many Protectorate officers were waiting outside was an indication that the balance of power in the city had abruptly shifted away from the local corporate managers. However, Lizanne knew this was merely a public demonstration of a long-hidden reality; Madame had long been the true power here.
“More pressing matters precluded any experimentation,” Lizanne replied. She stood at formal attention before the desk, having not been offered a seat. Arberus and Tekela had been obliged to wait downstairs, the Protectorate soldiers who had accompanied them from the trenches still very much in evidence. “Also, I was worried I might break it.”
“Yes.” Madame’s fingers lingered on the device, twitching a little. “It is good to see your judgement hasn’t completely failed you.”
Lizanne stiffened, her burgeoning resentment stoked somewhat by the fact that this was the closest thing to a compliment Madame had offered since her arrival. “Every decision taken was born of necessity,” she said, casting a pointed glance at the papers spread out on the desk next to the solargraph. “And I believe my results speak for themselves.”
Madame’s gaze snapped up, dark with anger. “Your identity is forever compromised now. You do realise that, I trust?”
