Wrath of Storms

by Steven McKinnon

  Angelo nodded once.

  ‘So, this the part where you extort us?’ Buzz asked. What’s this gonna cost? What do sixteen-year-old lads like—other than sixteen-year-old lasses? Buzz motioned to Valentine. ‘She’s with General Fallon. She can get you booze, food, water tokens—what are you into?’

  ‘Books.’

  ‘Oh. Shit.’

  Angelo’s nose crinkled. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to take a bribe.’

  Valentine punched the kid’s arm. ‘Good man.’

  Students and nuns ambled past. Buzz’s presence offended most people, but the nuns looked particularly affronted.

  ‘One of the boys,’ Angelo started when they were alone. ‘Jamie. He’s missing. Said he was joining the Lightbearers when he aged out. Said he’d fight in the revolution.’

  ‘Missing?’ Valentine asked. ‘Was he prone to disappearing?’

  ‘Sometimes. He snuck out a lot. He was a steward here—less scrutiny on older kids. Last time I spoke to him, he said he’d found a Lightbearer symbol. He met them. Followed the group to another meeting place. A bigger one. Other groups were there. Said there was hundreds of people.’

  ‘You sure, lad?’ Buzz pressed. ‘That’s more’n usual.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Angelo shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘But this is what I didn’t understand—Jamie said he followed them to Irros’ Beckon.’

  ‘Irros’ Beckon’s a ruin,’ said Valentine.

  ‘That’s what I told him. I said people still get poisoned from the Night of Amberfire. But that’s what Jamie told me: Irros’ Beckon.’

  ‘Hark, the Valkyries, they ride, bestowing gifts of Wintertide. Wisdom, for those seasons lost, and fire to thaw the winter’s frost. Hark, the Songstress, hear her sing, breathing life, to cleanse our sins…’

  The War Memorial Museum was the first thing people saw when they approached Kingsway, Dalthea’s northern district. Or rather, the incomplete Tower of Remembrance was the first thing they saw. It stood like a splintered branch sticking out of mud, broken and gnarled. The war museum at its base wasn’t in much better shape.

  Buzz had decided not to join Valentine in going back to the barracks—that one-eyed bastard general might make him go into the ruins of Irros’ Beckon, and turning informant was already a sure enough way to get himself killed.

  The Arc of Iona stood before the Queen Iona Bridge, displaying a frieze of some battle or other. Buzz didn’t reckon he’d get a mention when Fallon had destroyed the Lightbearers; only gallant knights who were brave—and stupid—enough to get themselves killed on the front lines had the luxury of being remembered; no-one gave a shit about people like Buzz. Unsung hero that I am.

  The Queen Iona Bridge led to Rochefort Castle—like the Memorial Museum, the castle was closed off while repairs were made. Funny, how the architects put all the attractions in the nicest spot of the kingdom. It was like they didn’t want tourists going anywhere else.

  Gulls wheeled high above, squawking challenges to airships. Wintercast carollers sang with smiles on their faces and the sweet aroma of kringla swirls made Buzz’s mouth wat—

  ‘’scuse me,’ Buzz muttered when a brawny watchwoman bashed into him.

  ‘Are you a drunkard?’ She glowered down at him with eyes no bigger than buttons. She had a broken nose and blotchy freckles, and her Watch helm didn’t do much to control the red-blonde frizz job beneath.

  Gone were the days where Buzz’s first instinct would be to snatch a copper’s purse and run. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I ain’t drunk at this moment, more’s the pity. Have yourself a good day now.’

  ‘That sarcasm? Oi, Tanner!’

  From behind Buzz, another copper shouldered past, a bloke in his thirties with the bloodshot eyes of a man who liked his laudanol. Sweat stains darkened the bronze of his Watch uniform and glistened on his red and flaking skin.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant Pol? This man giving you trouble?’

  ‘Constable Tanner, this degenerate was being bold with me.’

  Buzz rolled his eyes. He’d seen this routine often enough.

  ‘Where you going in such a hurry?’ demanded Sergeant Pol. ‘Somewhere important to be?’

  ‘Nah—now if you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘No? So you’re supposed to be in Kingsway?’ Tanner pressed. ‘That seems suspicious to me. Sergeant Pol, does that seem suspicious to you?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Look,’ Buzz started, ‘you can shake me down if you want, but I ain’t got the coin to pay whatever protection racket you’re running, all right? Now—’

  ‘Are you suggesting we’re corrupt?’

  Nyr’s tits. ‘No, all I’m saying—’

  Tanner jabbed Buzz and burst his lip.

  Buzz spat on the ground. ‘Bloody idiot, I work for your lot. We’re on the same side.’

  ‘You’re a filthy scuzzer,’ said Tanner. ‘I don’t got anything in common with you. I’m offended. Sergeant Pol, are you offended?’

  ‘I am, Constable Tanner.’

  Buzz wiped blood from his lip. ‘I work for General Fallon and your Arch Vigil—’

  Pol kicked Buzz in the groin. He doubled over and wriggled on the ground.

  It’s fine... It’s what happens... It’s just what the Watch does.

  It wasn’t right, but it was common. He’d lie down and take whatever they gave him. He’d done it often enough.

  ‘I don’t believe you. Constable Tanner, do you believe him?’

  Tanner stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Never trust the word of a scuzzer, Sergeant.’

  Pol kicked him again, and Buzz flailed across the cobbles, stringy blood trailing from his mouth.

  Pol loomed over him. ‘You’re under arrest for threatening an officer of the City Watch.’

  Buzz’s chest turned hollow. Most of the Watch dished out beatings—only the worst added false charges on top.

  ‘Piss on the pair o’ you,’ he croaked.

  ‘A threat against an officer of the Watch is akin to a threat on the Arch Vigil himself. I expect he’ll want you hung for this.’

  Buzz scrambled away but Pol dragged him back. ‘We’ll add escape attempt to the list of charges.’

  ‘Ask your boss,’ rasped Buzz. ‘My name’s Bertram Fitangus—Buzz. He knows who I am.’

  ‘Buzz Fitangus? Sergeant Pol, isn’t this the man who discovered Sadie Abernathy?’

  ‘I believe he is, Constable Tanner.’

  Buzz nodded, struggling to his feet. The ground tilted. ‘Aye… I told the Arch Vigil, I was the one who helped lay her to rest—’

  Tanner put him down again. Buzz’s chin struck the cobbles and blood flooded his mouth.

  ‘Heard he interfered with her.’ Tanner shook his head. ‘Groped her in front of everyone. What kind of sicko touches up a dead woman?’

  ‘A scuzzer with no shame,’ Pol answered.

  ‘I didn’t… I didn’t… Bastards. Help me… Somebody help me.’

  Even as Pol put a hood over his head, Buzz kept pleading.

  But the gulls kept squawking and the carollers kept singing.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Four years ago…

  Under Cleric Adravan’s watchful eye, Damien recited Nyr’s Prayer every day. It brought him no comfort and no assurance, but after defying Adravan’s order and touching the ignicite altar in the Solacewood—and having the gall to not lay down and die—the mad preacher had to believe that Damien was a follower.

  For his insolence, Adravan banned Damien from combat duty and demoted him to a steward, forcing him to clean the camp and cook the meals.

  In the dead of the night, Adravan would wake Damien and make him quote entire passages from the Fayth Codex. He prescribed a brutal training regime for Damien—‘One fit for a warrior who communes with Nyr’—demanding impossible targets and setting him up to fail in front of his brothers and sisters.

  But Damien surpassed every test and overcame every obstacle.

  W
hen Damien was made to duel blind-folded and one-handed with Sister Caerith, the best sword-dancer among them, he defeated her with only a cut to his arm, leaving her alive but with wounded pride.

  When he’d been commanded to venture deep into the Solacewood with Sateo and a pack of dogs hunting him, Damien had doubled back unseen and spent three nights hiding in the camp in comfort, before Sateo returned empty-handed and starved.

  And when Adravan had ordered Damien to hunt Azima among the treacherous and unforgiving mountains, he’d found her after one hour—and they spent the night entwined.

  As Adravan’s disciples grew stronger, so did Damien’s anger—at Adravan’s lies and deceit.

  And as the Gods feared Auferustrina for stealing Aerulus’ power, so too did Adravan fear Damien Fieri.

  ‘This is proof that our war is at hand.’ The creases in Adravan’s face grew deeper every day, and even the sun of the new summer refused to glow on the old man’s skin.

  As the cleric spoke, he weaved between twisted and broken bodies. ‘The Fayth sent these men and women in the night to kill us. They fear what I am capable of—what we are capable of.’

  The Nyr-az-Telun had slaughtered many people—brigands, criminals—but these emissaries from the Church… Sateo, Caerith and Azima had murdered them with a glee Damien hadn’t seen in them before.

  Does it make you envious, that he has denied you the blade?

  ‘The false Church of the Indecim now know where we commune with the Death God,’ Adravan continued. ‘The sheep who follow the Fayth will try again.’

  ‘And we will slaughter them again,’ barked Caerith.

  Pride filled Adravan’s face at that. ‘Yes, Sister—we will.’

  Sateo shot Damien a mocking glare. ‘Most of us.’

  Adravan leaned on his cane. ‘The second war of the Gods is coming, Brother Fieri. And all who stand in our way shall perish.’

  Smoke clung to Damien’s clothes and smelled of burning meat. The sounds of Rhis flooded over him; the hiss of grilled elk upon a street barbecue, the constant whine of machinery, the awkward waltz of Ryndaran words meshing with the language of Vermeaux. Cans clattered upon the pavement, and a monorail carriage spun overhead, veering off high and far.

  Grime covered his face, though the slanting rain would soon rinse it away. A simple precaution, but a necessary one amidst the Challenge when dignitaries swarmed from all over.

  Beneath the gas-lit haze of a Schörling Wolfsen clothing outlet, street girls with chalk-white painted faces and extravagant dresses tempted gentlemen into alleyways—the same gentlemen who no doubt attended church and preached Eiro’s charity and Musa’s love.

  A woman of middling years with dyed cherry-red hair peeled out of an alleyway. Though her eyes were sultry and her clothing exotic, Damien heard the anxiety in her heartbeat clear enough. ‘I’ll take you in my mouth for ten aerons.’

  ‘No.’ From his coat pocket, Damien withdrew a roll of notes. ‘Here—five hundred.’

  The woman hesitated.

  ‘It’s okay. Take it.’

  She withdrew. ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you have friends? Children?’

  The woman nodded.

  Damien pressed the money into her palm. ‘See that this provides food, clothing and shelter.’

  She closed her fingers around the notes and disappeared.

  With Wintercast and the Challenge—and the tourists they brought with them—public safety was a lesser concern than profit.

  It’s worse than before. The lower districts of Rhis had always been dens of vice. Laudanol and scuzz were peddled on every corner, sold by the rhythm of the black-booted march of the Rhis Watch. But no matter how tall the city’s peaks or its monument to Belios, the corruption flourished and rose with the rest of it.

  Damien despised it. When everyone knows what goes on, why maintain the pretence? Why outlaw the substances if you allow others to prey upon—and profit from—those who are enslaved by them? Why endeavour to present to the world a perfect, porcelain mask when the flesh decays beneath it? Why use the Indecim to preach against what you yourself indulge in when you believe no-one is looking?

  Because some vices are worse than others.

  Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Damien pressed forward. The Royal Palace glowered down at the world—even the Colossus of Belios couldn’t compare to the palace’s stature.

  The Challenge ends in three days—that will provide the best opportunity. Ample time.

  ‘This spot’s mine,’ a brittle voice warned. It belonged to an elderly man huddling in the shadows beneath a wrought-iron staircase. He clutched rags and newspapers to his chest, and a filthy grey braid hung around his jutting chin.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Damien.

  ‘Need to find your own spot out of this downpour... Pissin’ Irros, you must be drunk if you can’t feel that.’

  The rain had soaked Damien’s waistcoat and shirt straight through, and even the vest beneath.

  ‘Yes.’ With a thought, Damien regulated his body temperature. ‘Drunk. Cognac is the devil’s water, but it doesn’t half warm the soul.’ Damien peeled off his coat and handed it to the vagrant.

  The stranger’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Take it.’

  The man slipped out of the shadows and clutched it with gnarled fingers, recoiling back into his spot.

  ‘Here—you might not feel the cold now, young ’un—but you will.’ The man handed Damien his bundle of sodden newspapers. ‘Not perfect, but if you hole up, you’ll be grateful.’

  THE RYNDARA CHRONICLE—Gods’ Challenge SPECIAL!

  Hero Blood-Dancer Falls—Eulogy Inside

  ‘The Lady Protests Too Much!’ After Diva Couressa’s Aggressive Criticism of King Arnault, Now We Learn Of Her SHOCKING Laudanol Addiction!

  Tyson Gallows—Cheat Or Champion?

  Now Damien felt the chill.

  He stared at Gallows’ name until the ink trickled from the page.

  Three days, Damien had given himself—but now the parameters shifted.

  Above, a gunmetal monorail carriage rattled towards the Royal Palace, and Damien made a decision.

  Red as blood, the moon bears down. Men cry at Musa’s back as they die—not in anguish, but in bliss.

  Scores take blades to their own hearts when she gifts liberty upon them, eager to return to their chains of deceit.

  ‘Some lies are easier to swallow than the truth.’ Aldus’ words.

  The chanting hordes in the distance march across the trembling land. She hears them across leagues: ‘You are the Herald of Death, acting in sedition against the True Gods.’

  Pink beams of light speared through the grey winter clouds. Serena refused to sleep, not daring to close her eyes after the dream-vision roused her. Why are the visions coming now? Because I’m stronger? Is it a warning?

  And why is King Arnault immune to the siren-song? Is Gallows alive?

  These and a hundred more questions stewed in her mind. She pressed her forehead against a tall bay window. Her room overlooked the City of Steel; the peaks of Belios’ swords loomed high, but the rest of the city stood clumped together like metal in a scrap heap. Intermittent ignium ran through black smoke like a golden thread through a soot-stained tapestry.

  A hot bath and clean clothes weren’t enough to improve her mood, and for all that the drawing room contained, Serena found it lacking. Biographies of boring old men filled its bookshelves, and there wasn’t so much as an ignium lamp to take apart and reassemble. A brass globe that Serena had hoped carried a secret stash of booze turned out, in fact, to be a brass globe that housed a secret stash of empty bottles.

  At least the crystal decanter had plenty of water in it—she’d always appreciate that luxury.

  Airships rumbled past the window, some even sailing below. In the distance, much slower than the rest, a first-gen airship with a huge ballonet floated through the sky like a lazy, happy bee.

  But none of that made the drawin
g room feel like any less of a prison cell. The guards stationed outside her door occasionally burst in and asked questions about Myriel, making it impossible to relax. Serena got the impression that Arnault saw through Myriel’s lies—why keep them alive? To make sure Gallows would fight again?

  More questions.

  Serena threw herself onto a red leather chair. She closed her eyes, reached over to the brass globe, and spun it. Wherever it stops, that’s where I’ll go when this is all over.

  She pressed her index finger down and opened her eyes.

  Palthonheim. ‘Well, that’s not gonna happen.’

  With a creak, the drawing room doors opened.

  Here we go again.

  ‘Why don’t you just fu—’

  But it wasn’t the guards come to toy with her again.

  ‘Lady Alisabeth.’ Prince Garald smacked his hands together. ‘A pleasure to see you again.’

  ‘Um, hey.’ Serena curtseyed from the chair, which she doubted looked any more embarrassing than it felt.

  ‘Your quarters are to your liking, yes?’ He asked the question like a nervous father presenting his spoiled daughter with a prized pony on her sixteenth birthday.

  Serena stood. ‘Sure. Hey, how’s Mathildé? Can I see her?’

  ‘In good time. We’re having difficulty locating our copy of Culaire’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knighthood in order to verify her claims. Interesting fact: It wasn’t actually written by Denri tal Culaire.’

  Serena waited for him to continue.

  He didn’t.

  ‘That is interesting. Can I at least see Scruff?’

  ‘Ah, the king has… banished the sickly creature to the servants’ quarters.’

  Serena’s heart sank. Being under Arnault’s heel was bad enough, but if he’d harmed Scruff…

  ‘I do, however, have one gift for you.’ Garald clapped his hands together again, and a servant marched in with a birdcage.

  ‘Flicker!’

  The bird sang, and Garald beamed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  Serena grabbed the cage and opened it. Flicker burst out and zipped across the room, soaring past the marble relief in the ceiling and the drooping chandelier.