Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise

by Francis Knight

  I left them gawping and muttering at the marvel of the sky, grey and lumpy though it was. Quillan, Guinto and one of the gang leaders – the one with black swirling tattoos round his eyes and a snarling grin – came with me to see what had happened with the lab. Quite a lot, by the looks of it.

  We’d put the lab somewhere discreet, out of the way, because mages were only newly legal and, well, we’d had trouble. But Dench had known where it was, how to get to it, the best way to get in. Maybe he’d have been better off if he’d stayed with the men he’d sent to try and take it, or perhaps they weren’t intending to destroy it, not this time. Maybe they were after the machines, the chemicals, all Lise’s devious little ideas for staving off the Storad. Who knew?

  We approached the door, and it was obvious why that knot of Storad had been at the end of the stairwell rather than here – by the looks of things they had tried to take the lab, but had been beaten back and had decided to bide their time till they had Top of the World. Scorchmarks from their flamers arced over the door and wall surrounding it, but they’d made barely a dent. There was a small window by the door, smashed in, but the sill was washed in blood and other gloopy-looking things I didn’t like to look too closely at. Someone had made an effort to barricade the window while leaving enough room to shoot out of, and it seemed to have worked. Bodies enough littered the ground that it was tricky finding a place to put our boots without finding something soft and yielding – or, worse, squelchy – under them. From my cursory glance, it looked like someone inside was a very good shot indeed.

  I conjured a mental map of inside the lab, trying to think if there was any other handy way in, but the rest of the windows had an open view over the top of Trade and even a monkey would have a hard time getting to them. Maybe the Storad would have been able to shoot from a few walkways that crossed that area, but even after that, they’d still have to come through the door. We’d picked the position perfectly. It only remained to be seen if anyone was still alive in there. The fact that it hadn’t blown up gave me hope that Lise, at least, was still all right because I knew damn well she had enough chemicals in there to give a herd of rhinos pause, and she’d use them rather than let anyone get their grubby little paws on her precious gizmos.

  I got closer to the door, but not too close – whoever was that good a shot might not like me, and there was Lise’s expertise with booby traps to take into account. She’d almost killed me with them more than once, back when all this started, around about the beginning of the world.

  The barrel of a gun poked through a gap in the barricade, and I heard a whispered “Thank the Goddess,” which isn’t a greeting I’d ever had before. Behind the door locks ground around, bolts scraped across and other sounds of complicated things being disarmed echoed across the gap. It seemed to take a long time. After Dwarf died, and again after the screwdriver incident, I’d made double damned sure that no one could get in unless Lise wanted them in, and was now glad I’d ignored all her protests about it.

  Finally the door opened and a wary face peered round, then Allit shot towards me and almost had me off my feet in what I can only describe as the most enthusiastic welcome I’d ever had. Lise behind him was more reserved, but looked just as relieved as she grabbed for my hand and squeezed.

  When I managed to untangle Allit from me, he got himself under control and I wondered at the new look to him. Softness knocked from the edges of his young face, and eyes that… He didn’t look like the same boy. He didn’t look like a boy at all.

  “I didn’t let them get in,” he said, and then he grinned. “I saw them coming, saw where they were going to attack, so I made sure they couldn’t get through.”

  “You did? Hmmph,” Lise said. “I was the one who salted the walkways with traps.” She grinned up at me, happy in her work. “Got the bastards a treat. All your magelets helped too, Rojan – good practice for them, and they did well. But the traps were mine.”

  Quillan looked surprised for a second, obviously taking in Lise and Allit’s youth. “You did a good job.”

  “Very good,” I added, and Allit rewarded me with that look of hero worship that I remembered from the days when Perak thought the sun shone out of my arse. Goddess be damned, it felt good. “Is everyone all right? Erlat?”

  “Cabe?” Quillan asked. “Is he here?”

  “Yes, he’s here, came in quite handy – did you know he can bend things just by thinking about it? No? Not quite like Rojan does things, but pretty good all the same. Anyway, we’re all fine – well, a couple of injuries,” Lise said. “Nothing too much. Dendal used the first-aid kit from the pain lab to patch people up. And Erlat’s here – she’s good with that gun. I don’t think she missed once.”

  Quillan and the gang leader, Yagin, conferred behind me, then Yagin said, “We need somewhere to fall back, in case. Always have a bolthole, and one you can defend, right? We’re going in, up, but if you like I’ll leave a few of my lads here. First, a regroup and a plan of attack. A little reconnoitre – I’ll send my scouts off, see what they can find, then we’ll decide how to go about dissecting these bastards.”

  The thought of which made my back itch – those “lads” were murdering machines. But I didn’t say so. I was only too glad to have someone protecting the lab because I knew, sure as shit stinks, that I wouldn’t be able to persuade Lise, Dendal or Erlat to make a try for the Mishan gate.

  “Who else have you got?” I said, and followed Allit in, wanting to make sure with my own eyes that Erlat was all right.

  Quite a few, was who else. Yagin’s eyes almost popped out of his head when one of Erlat’s girls wandered past and winked at him. Her seductive dress and elegant make-up were at distinct odds with the gun she had ready in her hand, and the blood splashed all down her front. It wasn’t her blood.

  Yagin looked at Lise appraisingly, then back at the dead Storad. “You did that?”

  Lise bristled, pulled herself up to her not very tall tallest. “Damned right. Well, OK, some of the others are good with a gun. But I was the one who designed and set the quicklime traps.”

  “Quicklime? I like your style. Could do with a girl like you, after.” I saw the look of wicked appreciation spark on his face as he took in her more physical charms, and had to tell myself, Look, she may be your sister, but she’s grown up. And she’s good at being devious and underhand, blowing things and people up. She can handle him.

  And she did. “Join the queue, and be prepared to pay a lot for my expertise. Now, what were you planning? I’ve got any amount of things you might want.”

  His lips broke into a grin, insolent and waiting, but he didn’t look so threatening then.

  A few brief words and I left Lise and her new friends at one of the workbenches. I kept an eye on Yagin, just in case, but he behaved himself; in fact he seemed a bit in awe of Lise, as well he might. They cleared the bench of all the detritus of a genius at work and set up a sort of operational base. Perfect place for it too. In the brief snatches when the snow stopped, we could gaze down from the lab over Trade, could see anyone on the Spine from there up to Clouds and beyond, at least until it disappeared into the lowering haze.

  Younger lads were sent scampering over walkways to see what they could find, who was where, and whether the who had any weapons. Others were sent under Guinto’s direction to gather who they could, fire them up with his Goddess talk perhaps, get them out of their homes and fighting, as they always had, only this time for… maybe for nothing. Then again, Under always seemed to fight for something and end with nothing.

  I was glad to leave them to it because now I was no more or less use to them than any other man with a gun in his hand. All I had going for me was a pulse pistol I daren’t use unless I felt like going the way Pasha had, and a life-long, deep-seated hatred of the world and pretty much everything in it. Hatred and cynicism had got me a long way, but I was tired now. More tired than I could ever recall, and without even the luxury of loathing the Goddess for dumping all
this on us from a great height. It wasn’t her that had done it, and my hate seemed to have run dry.

  It wasn’t hard to tell where the Storad had got to – a dark mass on the Spine, moving confidently, but not so quickly that they weren’t doing their best to rout anyone to either side. No one seemed to be stopping them. Maybe not much point, if Allit was right. Maybe part of Perak’s plan to draw them in. I hoped so. We could see the mangled mess of the gates from here too, just, but the pass, the road and what was coming along it were mostly hidden by Heights and rendered dim in any case by the weather.

  I turned to Allit and didn’t even need to ask.

  “A day, at most, before the really big machines get here,” he said. “I can’t – I think I can see what they’re for. I wish Pasha was here so I could show you.”

  “So do I,” I said, though the picture of them was indelibly printed in my brain, had haunted what little sleep I’d had since Pasha had shown them to me. Machines with teeth and claws. Not guns… more like animals designed to pull things to bits. Maybe pull a city to bits. Or people. I hoped like hell that Perak’s plan, whatever it was, worked. It had better, because I was fresh out of ideas and didn’t have a clue what good this rising was going to do, what I could do. Not a damned, Goddess-fucked clue.

  I could feel myself sinking then, weighed under the grey of the clouds, under the song of the black, ever calling, ever tempting me. I’d driven it back a for a while as we’d fought in the square, as we’d carved our way to here, but now it was back. It lurked behind my eyes, in the ever-present throb of my screwed hand, coated my mouth when I went to speak.

  You could end this. Right now. If you had the guts you were born with, you could blast it all to the moon, lay this city bare, let the sun in Under. If you had the guts. Come on in, Rojan, where it’s warm and you never need fear again. Just one little thing, and we’ll be together. Always.

  My vision had drawn down to a cold hard point, a glimpse of light in darkness, and my hand moved on its own, no thought of mine telling it to bunch, to grind the fractured bones together. Just a little pain and it could all be gone.

  The grip on my arm, the voice next to me, jolted me out of it so hard I leapt back and smacked into a wall, heart shuddering at how close I’d been. Dendal was right – right then, the way I was, it would only take one little spell and I’d be lost. And still I was tempted.

  “Rojan?”

  The voice sent it shrieking behind me, lost in the whirl of grey daylight coming in the windows that burned my eyes. Erlat – I never heard the black at Erlat’s. My mind grabbed for that thought, for the voice, willed her to speak again so I could hold on.

  “Dendal sent me. He said – Are you all right? Rojan?”

  A smooth voice, calming, serene like nothing could touch her. Bollocks, of course, because she’d known worse than I ever would, but you’d never know it to hear her speak. Erlat was always strong. Not like Jake, not whirling with swords and anger yet brittle as glass none the less, just strong inside, like a smooth and wickedly sharp blade hidden under a beautiful scabbard.

  “I’m all right,” I managed, and found to my surprise that I was. Or about as all right as I could be under the circumstances. I stood up straight and tried to look like I wasn’t about to keel over or go batshit. “Where’s Jake?”

  Erlat stepped back a pace and turned away to answer, an oddly taut undercurrent to her voice. “Back where she always used to be. Trying to get herself killed, but too proud to let anyone beat her.”

  I pulled Erlat gently round to look at me, expecting to find her crying, but she was stronger than that, stronger than me because I wanted to cry. “Because Pasha’s gone? And it’s all my fault, all of it. I started this whole hot mess, I screwed with what worked, and that action led straight to this, and it should have been me on that stupid machine, right?”

  I was kind of hoping for a bit of sympathy perhaps, her to say, “No, no,” or because that wasn’t really likely, “Yes but you did it for good reasons.” Instead I got the full force of her glare and “Yes. You started all this, and I know why, and I think you did the right thing, but it remains that you started all this and Pasha’s gone, Jake’s sort of… shrivelled up inside and won’t let anyone see it. But the Rojan I know, or used to, wouldn’t be standing here whining about it. He’d be hating everything and everyone and he’d be swearing fit to bust, but he’d be doing something rather than feeling sorry for himself. Because this” – she waved her hand at Quillan and his friends as they bickered quietly and not so quietly – “anyone can do that, and yes it needs doing but you aren’t even doing anything with them.”

  She pulled herself up straight and got me right in the eye with her glare. “So what are you going to do, Rojan?”

  Sometimes it takes a good verbal slap from someone to really clear the crap out of your eyes. I counted myself lucky she hadn’t followed it with a real slap, restrained the urge to kiss her and pulled myself together because she was right. She always was, and it annoyed the crap out of me. Besides which, I have this in-built wish to not look like a complete chicken in front of ladies.

  “Firstly, we’re going to find that telescope,” I said. “Then we’re going to listen to what Yagin’s scouts have to say. Then we’re going to storm Top of the World. I think.”

  I was rewarded with a firm nod and a hint of her teasing smile. It was enough, more than enough because I felt a new surge of energy, of hate, like she said. Not for anyone in particular – all right, perhaps Dench but I couldn’t even muster much for him – but for the sheer futility of everything, the stupidity of it all.

  This was my chance to stop the stupidity, maybe for good, but I needed to know what I was up against first, so Erlat and I went to listen in at the bench where the scouts were reporting back.

  “Looks like the Storad are determined to make a go for Top of the World. Bunched up at the top of Clouds for now, and it seems like they’re being held off. That’s where all the other roads stop, and it’s just the Spine, so a narrow place to defend. But the guards won’t last for ever. They know it too – they’re defending just below the cut-off, and getting out as many people as they can down the side roads.”

  “Who’s defending?” I asked.

  Yagin still scared the crap out of me, but I tried not to let it show. “What’s left of the guards and Specials. None of the cardinals, obviously, nor any of their men. But the Archdeacon —”

  “Perak’s fighting?” My stomach went cold at that. Perak wasn’t a fighter; he’d get himself creamed.

  “We think so – hard to tell without getting close. What I can tell you is there is some woman dressed in a uniform we’ve never seen before and she’s laying into those Storad like a drunk lays into a barrel of beer. No guns, but she’s got two swords she knows how to use. She’s fast and she’s devious, coming up on them from the back, the side, any way they aren’t looking for her. She’s making them pretty jittery.”

  And messy, with all probability. Jake never killed, or hadn’t before. Just enough to wound, to stop them being a threat. But now, without Pasha around, with her comfort gone, all bets were off. I was glad I wasn’t a Storad.

  “Between us and them?”

  Quillan shrugged. “Seems pretty clear on the Spine. Our lot trying to escape, a few of theirs cutting down anyone they find.”

  “And Top of the World?”

  “Emptying fast, and Clouds, though that’s been emptying for a while. Pretty good time to kill any cardinals we find, if there are any left,” Yagin said, and his men grinned behind him. Men after my own heart, really. Possibly in more than one sense, so I kept my distance. “Why, you got something in mind?”

  My mind clicked over everything, all I knew, all that had happened, every corner of me that wanted to blow the whole Ministry to hell and send the Storad after them.

  “You know, I think I just might.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  By the time we left the lab the snow had fina
lly stopped, though the grey clouds lingered and lowered like they wanted to come and play. The light made Clouds into indistinct humps in the greyness, and the snow had turned even the shabby houses we could see Under into magical cottages. Well, magical cottages that some giant baby had decided to stack up like so many toy bricks before it’d got bored and started kicking them about. Underfoot, the passage of the Storad had made the road slippery with slush which had re-frozen into a slick, rumpled sheet, but at least it wasn’t rain. Instead it was cold enough to make your knackers clank.

  The cold hadn’t deterred anyone that I could see. The opposite, in fact. What had started as a few hardy souls doing what pathetic little they could had turned into a fairly organised mob. No torches and pitchforks though: this was a different kind of crowd, brandishing appropriated guns, stolen flamers, kitchen knives, planks of two-by-four, knuckledusters, flick-knives and pretty much any makeshift weapon that a city like this could harbour. Halina was there with her Stencher mates, a wicked grin plastered on her face and not caring who saw that she wasn’t so much walking as floating over the ice-stricken way. Lise refused to stay behind and I had no heart to insist – she’d lost as much as anyone, had as much right as I did to be there. With one of Dwarf’s weapons in her hand, no one wanted to get too close in any case, although Yagin was making a valiant effort at appearing nonchalant.

  The magelets came too, all of them. I couldn’t stop them, and I didn’t think I wanted to. Cabe was under the protective arm of his father, Quillan. Another boy was bouncing fire on his palm, quenching it, relighting it as sweat popped up on his brow – I could see him becoming very useful, if he managed to stop accidentally lighting his hair. Halina looked exhausted, and her arm was a mass of bruising, but she floated along with one of the others behind her, though every few paces he dropped down to the walkway and had to launch himself again. Halina urged him on with a grim smile. All the rest – they all came, each willing to do their best, whatever that best was. I could only hope they survived the experience. That we all did, but them the most.