by Anthony Ryan
“Seer-damn me for the ages,” Skaggerhill swore, arriving to deliver a hefty kick to the engine. “Lever’s gone, and the controls for the car are smashed. This ain’t something non-Blessed hands could do.”
Clay stood gritting his teeth in impotent rage as he stared at the clouds clinging to the mountain side, Miss Lethridge’s words ringing loud in his head. His appearance at that juncture seems a little convenient . . .
“Scriberson,” he said in a hiss.
—
“He’s Blood-blessed,” Clay said, closing the flap on the pack and tying it tight. He rose and walked briskly to the gate. “Takes a Blood-blessed to fight a Blood-blessed.”
“With no product,” Braddon pointed out.
“Miss Drystone has some left.”
He went outside where Ethelynne waited atop Lutharon’s back. They had arrived only a few minutes after Scriberson stole the cable-car, drawn by the sight of it disappearing into the clouds.
“If he killed Firpike . . .” Braddon went on.
“She’s alive,” Clay cut in, striding towards the drake, though his words carried more conviction than he felt. “I . . . just know it. Maybe he wanted a hostage. Either way, I’m getting her back and killing him when I do.”
He heard Braddon sigh in resigned agreement before he said, “Be sure to send the car back down the moment you get there. Skaggs reckons he can rig something up so we can make use of it.”
Clay climbed up behind Ethelynne, the drake issuing a rumble of welcome and unfolding his wings. “Wait a moment please, ma’am,” he said, touching Ethelynne’s shoulder. He turned to face his uncle, steeling himself against the likely reaction, but some words just had to be said. “I ain’t sending the car back down, Uncle.”
Braddon’s reluctant agreement transformed into a baffled anger and he started forward with a purposeful growl. “You listen to me, boy . . .”
“Madame Bondersil’s dead,” Clay said, Braddon drawing up short at the harshness of his tone. “Your contract ended with her. She died eight days ago when a Blue ate her just as she was about to sell Ironship out to the Corvantines. Something she’d been planning a good long while, just so’s you know. And Carvenport ain’t under siege by the Corvantines no more because a buncha drakes turned up and killed them all. Now everyone’s just waiting for the Reds and Blacks to come down outta the sky and burn the place to cinders. And this is all ’cause of what’s in there.” He pointed at the mountain. “That thing wants everything it used to have, and more besides.”
He settled himself more firmly between the spines on Lutharon’s back, turning away from Braddon. “Once I’ve got Silverpin back, I’m gonna take all the powder in the car and blow the White to the Travail. You’d be wise to be far from here by then. Get to the coast, see if you can find a ship. Once the White’s gone you should be able to sail home through quieter waters.”
“Claydon . . .”
Something in Braddon’s voice made him turn back, the absence of anger mixed with something more. Clay met his gaze and saw it was gone, the compulsion, the desperate hunger for the White. Now there was just a puzzled and scared man knowing he was most likely saying good-bye to his nephew for the last time. What changed? Clay wondered. All this way, now we’re closer to it than ever, and the need has gone.
Braddon started forward again, then stopped as Lutharon voiced a warning huff, smoke rising from his nostrils in twin black plumes. Braddon lifted a hand in placation then unslung his longrifle from his shoulder, holding it out towards Clay. “You might have need of this,” he said.
Clay nodded and held out his hand, grasping the rifle as his uncle came closer. He seemed about to say something, but the words failed to reach his lips. His eyes, however, spoke of deep regret and guilt that might never fade. “Thanks for getting me out of gaol,” Clay told him, settling the longrifle on his back and pulling the strap tight on his chest. “I know you didn’t have to. And be sure to thank Auntie for my gift.”
Lutharon turned about and galloped away from the settlement, building momentum before launching himself into the air, his wings lifting them higher in a series of thunderous beats. They circled the settlement once, Clay looking down to see them staring up at him, Loriabeth, Skaggerhill, Preacher and Braddon, thinking it strange that he would actually miss them. Then Lutharon angled his wings and they began to ascend to the mountain top, the world turning white as they slipped into the clouds.
CHAPTER 38
Lizanne
The first attack came two days after Lizanne had woken from her hospital bed, a dense mass of Reds streaking down out of a hazy mid-morn sky to vomit their fire at the buildings below. Knowing the consequences of allowing people to gather above ground in the event of such an attack, Lizanne had made efforts to introduce a daylong curfew, enforced by patrols of Protectorate constables. But many citizens ignored the strictures and attempted to continue some semblance of their former routine with the result that, when the blow finally fell, a large number were naked before the onslaught.
The managerial district bore the brunt of the flames, two entire streets becoming wreathed in flame in the space of a minute as the drakes swept by in a red blur before ascending and wheeling about for another pass, this time making for the docks. By then the Thumper and Growler crews recovered their wits enough to respond. The batteries on the roof-tops in Corporate Square found the range quickly, a pair of Thumpers and a dozen or so Growlers blazing away in a frenzy. The effectiveness of their fire owed more to its rapidity than any accuracy. Lizanne counted half a dozen Reds falling in a twisted spiral towards the earth as the formation of wheeling drakes broke apart, their shrieks of alarm mingling with the crackle of gun-fire and screams rising from the city below.
She had positioned herself and Tekela on the parapet of the conical tower rising from the roof of the Ironship Central Records Office, a sturdy granite building standing three storeys high. It was defended by a single Thumper augmented by three Growlers and a platoon of freed Corvantine prisoners under command of Major Arberus. Most of the captives had agreed to take part in the defence of the city they had been attempting to destroy barely a week before.
Lizanne tracked the fall of one of the stricken drakes to the park where it came down amidst the flower-beds. Still living despite its wounds the Red, a full-grown male, immediately began to thrash about, blood spraying from a part-severed wing as its flames transformed the precisely ordered rows of roses and crocuses into cinders. As per the prearranged plan she had formulated with Commander Stavemoor, a small group of Contractors soon arrived on horseback to dispatch the beast, its fire guttering as it convulsed under a volley of longrifle rounds.
“Lizanne!” Tekela said urgently, and Lizanne lowered the spy-glass to see a trio of Reds flying straight towards their perch, wings flat and level as they glided into an attack, mouths gaping to shriek challenge and fury.
“Get down!” Lizanne told Tekela, stepping away from her and flexing her fingers over the Spider’s buttons. Black to hold them, she decided, focusing her gaze on the lead drake, an aged veteran of life in the Badlands judging by the many long-healed scars marring its face. In the event she had no need of product, Major Arberus timing the Thumper’s volley perfectly just as fire began to blossom from the mouths of the three Reds. The old veteran took two shells in the chest, falling to earth in a twisted vortex of blood and dwindling flame. The Red on the left was nearly decapitated by the line of shells that tore through its neck whilst the third suffered a prolonged burst of Growler fire before slamming into the edge of the roof. It clung on for a short time, screaming and belching flame as its claws scrabbled at the tiles, before a concentrated volley from the Corvantines sent it tumbling into the street below.
Lizanne turned her attention back to the city. There were still dozens of Reds wheeling amidst the rising columns of smoke, singly or in pairs. They seemed wary of flying lower than a hundr
ed feet now, those that did soon falling victim to the guns. The battle wore on for another hour, claiming at least another dozen Reds by Lizanne’s reckoning, though the defenders suffered too. She saw a Growler battery on a neighbouring roof-top wiped out by suicidal drakes, the beasts flying directly into the stream of bullets to slam into the roof-tops in an explosion of spilled product. The resultant shrieks were even more piercing than that of the drakes and Tekela had clamped her hands over her ears by the time the last Red had wheeled about and disappeared towards the south.
“So many fires,” Tekela murmured, lowering her hands from her ears and gazing at the spectacle before them. Fires raged in every corner of the city, from Colonial Town to Artisan’s Row, but all were being fought by the companies of bucket-wielding citizens Lizanne had organised, and there was no general conflagration. Also, the crumpled bodies of a score or more drakes could be seen through the smoke. Carvenport had suffered a grievous blow, but they had survived.
“Make a note,” Lizanne told Tekela. “The harvesters are to salvage and refine as much product as possible from the drake corpses.”
—
“I am truly sorry, Mrs. Torcreek, but we have no choice. This district is a tinder-box.”
Fredabel Torcreek regarded Lizanne with momentary defiance, lips twitching as she formulated a retort, soon transformed into a sigh of weary acceptance as she nodded. “Half-burnt to the ground already,” she said. “My own house with it.”
“It would help if you would speak to your neighbours,” Lizanne said. “Explain things in terms they’ll understand. So far, my word doesn’t appear to be carrying much weight. There is ample accommodation in the corporate warehouses, and since they’re built from iron these days, they won’t burn.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Fredabel gestured at the small tent city surrounding them. “And the hospital?”
“I’ve ordered all offices in Corporate Square given over to care of the wounded.” She pulled an envelope from her pocket and handed it to the older woman. “You have also been appointed Chief Medical Administrator.”
Fredabel gave a small smile and brushed a wayward lock of hair back under her headscarf. “The grandest title I ever carried, for sure.” She paused for a moment, all vestige of humour fading from her face and she fixed Lizanne with a demanding stare. “What news from the Longrifles?”
Lizanne began a prompt and rehearsed lie, but found the words dying on her tongue. She at least deserves the truth, while she’s still alive to hear it. “I tranced with your nephew today, Mrs. Torcreek. He, your daughter and husband are alive but facing great danger. Beyond that, I cannot say.”
“This danger got anything to do with all this? Fredabel jerked her head at the corpse of a Red across the street and the team of harvesters busily syphoning off its blood. “Seems a mite coincidental otherwise.”
“My company was misled into making a grievous error,” Lizanne said. “It is my belief that we . . . awoke something.”
“And now we’re all gonna pay for it, huh?”
Lizanne straightened, buttressing her tone with the kind of unassailable confidence she had often heard in Madame’s voice. “Morsvale didn’t last out for more than a day,” she said. “Principally because they were an enslaved populace serving a corrupt and incompetent regime. We, on the other hand, are graced by considerably more advantages, not least in the nature of our people.”
Fredabel shook her head and gave a small grin before turning to Tekela. “You be sure and write that down, girl,” she said. “This place’ll have need of a testament soon enough.”
—
The last of the fires was extinguished come nightfall and, in the aftermath, it soon became clear that there would be no more defiance of curfew, every street standing empty save for the occasional Protectorate patrol. This proved to be fortunate, as the drakes were not content to let them rest.
Just after midnight the Greens came streaming out of the jungle by the thousand to assault the walls in a dozen places. Lizanne had given defence of the wall over to Commander Stavemoor, reckoning the relative simplicity of the task would suit his temperament, and it appeared the decision paid considerable dividends. Well-drilled Growler crews took a fearful toll before the screaming mass of Greens reached the walls, whereupon the expertise of the Contractors kept them at bay for a time, the abandoned trenches soon becoming choked with drake corpses as the longrifles maintained a furious and deadly accurate fire.
After hearing the initial reports Lizanne had begun to conclude the attack might merely be an expression of mindless rage, the drakes driven for reasons unknown to sacrifice themselves beneath a barrier they had no means of breaching. Then came the report that the corpses had begun to pile up in certain places, the piles growing higher as more and more drakes clambered up the mounds of fallen kin to launch themselves at the parapet above.
Commander Stavemoor reacted by ordering one of his two Thumpers to fire at the base of the mounds, the explosive shells undermining the pile sufficiently for them to collapse under the weight of climbing Greens. However, the innovation came too late to prevent a pack of Greens gaining a foothold on the most eastern extremity of the wall, killing many defenders and threatening to break through into the streets beyond. Fortunately, Lizanne and the commander had foreseen such an emergency and organised squads of Blood-blessed that could be rushed to plug any breaches in the defences. Through a desperate use of Black and Red they managed to stall the Greens on the parapet long enough for an additional battery of Growlers to be shifted to the sector. The weight of fire proved sufficient to sweep the drakes from the walls and by the first glimmerings of dawn the tide of Greens had receded into the jungle. The cost, however, had not been slight.
“Two hundred and seventy-three killed,” Commander Stavemoor reported at the morning meeting Lizanne convened in her new office in the basement of the Central Records Office. “Plus four hundred wounded. That reduces my command by over a third.”
“Total fatalities for the past two days amount to over a thousand,” the accountancy manager piped up. “As for the loss of property and associated values”—he began to leaf through his papers then stopped under the weight of Lizanne’s stare, adding in a soft mutter—“a matter for another time, perhaps.”
“A thousand dead in less than two days,” Major Arberus said.
“Plus the Seer knows how many Greens and a good number of Reds,” Stavemoor pointed out. “All in all, I’d say we’ve given a damn good account of ourselves.”
“They got plenty more where they came from,” Captain Flaxknot murmured. Lizanne had asked the Contractors to elect someone to speak on their behalf and the leader of the Chainmasters got the job by dint of experience and the breadth of respect she enjoyed. Although, for the sake of morale, Lizanne was beginning to wish they had chosen someone with a less realistic outlook. “Seen more Greens in the last few days than I thought was left in this whole continent. And the Reds, all flying together in one great host like that.” She shook her head in grim wonder. “What’s happening here’s got nothing to do with nature.”
“Evidently,” Lizanne said, adding a brisk note to her voice. “However, pondering the whys and wherefores of our predicament will avail us little. Despite our grievous wounds, this city remains standing and our manufactory continues to produce weapons at an impressive rate. We have suffered greatly, but have learned in the suffering.”
She turned to Stavemoor. “Commander, please organise working parties to clear away the drake corpses and dig a ditch around the wall.”
The commander blinked tired eyes at her but didn’t feel compelled to argue. “How deep?” he asked instead.
“As deep as you can make it before they come again. You will have the assistance of every Blood-blessed in the city.”
“What about the Reds?” Captain Flaxknot asked. “Gotta expect them to return sometime, and I doubt th
ey’ll be dumb enough to do so in daylight. Red’s a cunning beast.”
“Hard to hit them in darkness,” Major Arberus agreed.
“Then we must endeavour to turn night into day,” Lizanne said, her gaze tracking over those present until it alighted on a slim man in the dark blue uniform of a commodore in the Maritime Protectorate. “And, luckily, our harbour is crowded with the means to do just that.”
—
As Captain Flaxknot predicted the Reds waited until nightfall to return. They attacked in smaller groups this time, swooping down at great speed and evidently wary of spending more than a few seconds in range of the growing number of guns now crowding the city’s roof-tops. Cover of darkness did offer some advantages to the drakes, and several Growler and Thumper batteries were destroyed in the initial stages of the attack, the Reds forsaking their usual screams of challenge to glide down without warning and cast forth their flames or rend with tooth and talon. Once the alarm had been raised, however, the order was given to put Lizanne’s innovation to the test.
It had taken much of the day to shift the searchlights from the ships to the chosen vantage sites about the city, each one placed alongside a Thumper position so that they might immediately engage any illuminated targets. At first the blue-white beams seemed to roam the sky at random, shimmering lances dissecting the night to little purpose, but then one alighted on a Red gliding above at close to five hundred feet, two more beams quickly flicking over to fix on the target as every Thumper within range roared into life. The drake twisted and wheeled in the beams, tail snaking and wings folding continually as it sought to escape the betraying light, to no avail. Within seconds it tumbled into the Blinds, its death scream choking off as it connected with the ground.
The contest was far from over, however, the Reds, or whatever unseen hand commanded them, proving unwilling to retreat in the face of this new threat. Time and again they came streaking out of the dark to cast their fires at the defending gun-crews, some deliberately placing themselves in the path of the searchlight beams in order to follow them down and extinguish the hateful light. Most were torn apart by intersecting Thumper and Growler fire before they got within a hundred feet of the lights, but they succeeded in two instances, the unfortunate sailors manning the lights all suffering the appalling fate of the non-Blessed who find themselves drenched in drake blood. Come the dawn, however, there were no more Reds to be seen and they counted another twenty-three drake corpses within the city limits.
