Laughing, as was the King in Red himself.
The storm of iron lost its animating life, and fell.
Temoc ran faster.
And then the lightning spoke.
* * *
Elayne watched. Elegant. The fléchettes first, too fast for the gods to turn aside one by one, and enchanted to seek their target. The easiest response to which, if you were a god, was to apply a single, powerful charge to the entire field of combat, fléchettes and divine wings and armor alike, so the King in Red’s iron splinters could never come close enough to hurt the angels. Which, of course, left the angels charged.
So now you have a fléchette storm, positively charged, and a number of angels whose wings are as well. Drop the fléchettes, and you’re left with a field of charged targets. Which means, no matter where they run, no matter how fast they move, you can find them, and hit them.
And so as the angels flew toward the King in Red, dragonwing antennae sparked and popped. Lightning lanced across empty air.
The angels burned.
* * *
Chel was behind and beneath the dragon when the lightning hit.
She was aware only of a discontinuity, of flying toward the dragon and then of falling a hundred feet or so beneath, below, every muscle clenched at once, blood in her mouth and ozone in her nose. Ground approaching, fast, faster—she tried to spread wings but the wings did not spread, she spun and fell and flailed as the gods’ voices clashed in disarray, but there, her fingers twitched, and the tips of her wings, and out they flared, arresting her in mid-fall, slowing so fast the world went gray but at least she rose.
Above, the others hung in brilliant webs, arrayed in a ring around the dragon’s vast head. She must have dodged the worst of it.
Her fellows were not so lucky. They writhed, a twitching agony of seconds that stretched for years. Hooks and beams and instruments of torture manifested in the sky, pierced their wings and pulled, and tore.
The gods’ song faltered and grew faint.
She flew faster, a rising spark, a streak to embrace the sun, toward the dragon.
* * *
—adjust—scramble—pain—pain—escape—fly—
Temoc, running, heard the gods recoil as the King in Red tore their emissaries. The dragon threw its defenses against him: shields manifested in his path and he broke them. His distance to the dragon doubled and doubled again with every micrometer of space he crossed, and yet still he crossed the space. Demonic claws glanced off his shining scars.
Divine voices clashed discordant in his mind.
Lose the wings, he prayed, fervently. They’re too much—gives him something to grab and tear. He knows you want them, so he tries to take them from you. It’s only a matter of time before your power runs out.
—perhaps—
With a roar of tearing paper, the risen of Chakal Square burst from their plasma wings and leapt forth, fingers grown claw-long, teeth sharpened to points. The dragon’s wards sparked and flashed; two dropped insensate to the city far below, but eight more landed, three on the dragon’s skull, three on the left wing, two on the right.
Temoc himself touched down above the creature’s ruby forehead. The head twisted; the dragon screamed an iron scream. Around, beneath, to all sides Dresediel Lex wheeled, one with its sky. The shadows that clad Temoc’s feet gripped the dragon’s scales, held him in place. One more of the risen fell, contorted with insensate rage; the rest dropped to all fours and scampered down the long neck toward the King in Red and his Warden captain.
On the wings, more Wardens ran to intercept the risen, weapons shining in their hands. Fast, so fast, but not fast enough; claws tore silver masks and teeth ripped silver throats. The three from the skull leapt down the neck, from scale to massive scale toward the King in Red. Grinning still, grinning always, the Craftsman stretched out his hand. Invisible knives flensed the fire from the risen, but it rekindled and they advanced—slower, though, a bare but perceptible change, and still the knives spun and skinned. The second of the risen fell: her own body sprouted thorns that grew inward, piercing flesh and bone. Still she advanced, spurred by divine fervor. On the wings, Wardens recovered their footing, ringed the risen and stabbed them with spears as if baiting bears.
He’s playing an attrition game, Temoc prayed. Forcing you to spend power you don’t have, power you can’t recover. Spreading you between obligations until you break.
—our city—our power—
Not now. Not after forty years. You can retreat, but that doesn’t mean you can win.
—no retreat—too long asleep—
He thought, at the last, of Caleb, and of Mina, and of the family he’d given up for it to end here, on dragonback.
And then, because he saw no other way, he opened himself to the gods. He pulled their power into him. Light surged through his scars. He sprinted up the dragon’s neck. Demons barred his path; he shattered one with a punch and threw himself into the second’s chest, breaking crystal with his weight. Close now, so close. More shields, easily sidestepped. Disregard the captain. Focus on the King in Red.
Kill him and this ends. You don’t win, nobody wins this kind of war, but at least it ends.
The dragon swooped toward Chakal Square. Another risen tumbled off. The Wardens pressed the attack.
And the King in Red stood before him, undefended, his eyes twin red stars in the black of his skull. Temoc swept his arm around, fast—
And the King in Red raised his staff in a blur and blocked.
* * *
Chel was airborne when her wings failed and the fire of her flesh changed shape. New animal instincts rushed in, mixed a cocktail with the fear in her blood. Even without the wings, momentum carried her up, up, don’t think about the drop, the hundreds of feet give or take a death or two she’d fall to solid rock. Focus on the dragon, reach with your claws, never mind how you got claws exactly, just reach—
She caught the edge of a knife-sharp scale. As the dragon dove and lurched she pulled herself up, one hand at a time, forcing her feet between the beast-machine’s immense scales, and she climbed and climbed until she stood atop the back.
Gods called her to battle, but she splayed flat. The gods had not made good decisions so far. A Warden approached over the swell of the dragon’s body: mistook her for a corpse. She did not disabuse him of the notion, not until he was close enough, gods, until she was close enough for Chel to grab her ankle and throw her off into the void.
Screaming, she fell.
Distractions: who was that Warden? How old? What family? Was she young? Married? Children? Happy? What path brought her here?
Below, the Square was dead. And that woman, too.
She crawled across the dragon’s back.
* * *
Captain Chimalli felt the wind as Temoc sprinted past him. He turned in time to see the King in Red defend himself, war-glyphs shining from his bones. No time for Chimalli to help: the monsters of Chakal Square had almost reached him, climbing up the neck.
The first, still pressing through a squall of knives, its flesh stripped to bare bone, would be the easiest. It pounced and he sidestepped, struck with both hands on the back of its neck, heard the spine snap. Fallen, it spasmed, started to slide off the dragon’s neck. Bones wriggled and realigned. He’d have to kill it again in a minute. Fine.
The second, the one that had been female, with the thorns growing through it, was slower, and more difficult. Pain made it canny. A feint forward with a claw, from which he retreated a step. He drew his truncheon. Another feint, another step back. It knelt and growled, as behind it the third approached.
Two against one were not odds Chimalli liked.
He lurched back. Hungry, the monster struck with a claw. Chimalli did not need to recover his footing, had never lost it, faking only—he grabbed the clawed hand, twisted and pulled and hoped these things’ joints still worked like those of men.
Yes. The wrist popped, and the elbow and shoulder when
he twisted his waist. A blow with the truncheon to the side of the skull sent that one sliding down the slope of the dragon’s neck, clawing with one arm to halt its fall. Which left the third—
The third hit him in the back. Claws dug through his uniform jacket, through his armor plates, through slick silver into skin. He grunted, no screams yet. Teeth on his neck, not through the mask. He fell forward, pushed up with his legs and arms. Bad idea, this, but no better ones with claws in your back. He jumped, and for a sickening moment was airborne over the dragon’s neck—then the monster hit scale, and he hit the monster, hard enough to break its grip and roll to one side, his arms weaving around its arm and tightening to dislocate the joint. He stood, hands empty, truncheon fallen. The King in Red and Temoc were a tempest of red and black and silver and brass, but he had no time to help, with the first monster recovered almost already and standing.
Chimalli hit it in the face, and it dropped again. He turned to the second, and hoped.
* * *
The fires of the Skittersill were not dead, but they banked low. The gripfire was two parts, fuel and spark, the plan being that the fuel would last the spark long enough for it to catch. Elayne had broken the cycle, and the fuel was almost gone.
Minutes more, and it would all be over.
Elayne’s senses filled the Skittersill, and she watched the dragon swoop toward Chakal Square, wings beating. She watched the battle on its back. The sparks, the angels, faded. With each death they slowed, reduced. Captain Chimalli fought three at once, while behind him his master and Temoc traded stroke for stroke. And Chel, where was Chel, lost already, fallen? No. Elayne saw the woman crawl along the dragon’s back, light dimmed, keeping low. She remained herself, despite the gods.
And Elayne watched from the sidelines.
“She’s still alive,” Tay said. “Save her.”
“I can’t,” she said. “That was the deal.”
Around her, the King in Red’s victims wept.
“Break the deal.”
“I can’t.”
You’re not a warrior anymore, Temoc had said.
A peacemaker. A restorer of life. That was what she wanted to be. A counselor.
And so far she had failed.
Soon, at least, the fires would go out.
* * *
Temoc and the King in Red danced an old dance. Faster, faster they spun. Temoc lashed out with a kick, blocked by the staff, as was his second. Invited his adversary to attack, sidestepped the staff strike when it came, grabbed at the weapon which was gone already—it swept in a blurred circle to clip a temple that was not there because Temoc had already ducked back.
Fiercer they fought, power flowing into both from greater fonts. From their perspective the exchange contained long pauses, slow shifting moments in which each examined the other, considered options and rejected them, feinted and countered. Still they moved too fast for an outside observer to see anything but a blur.
Temoc had never fought like this, not even in the God Wars. Accelerating mass and perception to such heights cost Craftsmen dearly—more efficient to slay from a distance, to destroy targets that could not defend themselves. One might lose a fistfight.
As the King in Red would lose. Temoc’s hands were so close to his neck. He would break those bones, piece by piece. Craftsmen were hard to kill, but he could manage. He was faster, stronger than he had ever been. A bringer of vengeance. The last true knight in the world.
* * *
The monsters slowed. When the next came for Chimalli, he caught it, lifted it, threw it off the dragon. The second, when killed, did not rise again. There was pain somewhere in his body, from cuts and scrapes, and blood everywhere. He would deal with that later. The third monster jumped him, and he flipped it to the ground, knelt on top of it, and hit it in the face, again and again. Bones cracked. He hit it a few more times, and stood, trembling.
The King in Red fought Temoc, so fast. He tried to track their bodies, to tell his boss from his enemy. Maybe. Somewhere. Suggestions of shape within the blur.
He reached for the holster at his thigh.
* * *
Chel felt the gods fade and herself reduced. No. She remained. The divine grip that held her, the wrath that pulsed through her veins like a second blood, that eased. She became herself again, on this dragon’s back, a human being crawling toward the crimson-black cloud that was the King in Red, fighting Temoc.
Not good. Not bad, either, she decided.
At least she still had weapons.
She rose into a crouch, crossbow at the ready.
* * *
The last of the fuel consumed, the fires of Chakal Square began to die.
Elayne watched the dragon, and saw what was about to happen.
“Help her!”
Yes. To all the hells with the Craft and its rules, with word and bond. Just help.
She called her power to her, reached out—
But at the last her own promise bound her, held her. I will not save them.
Her Craft broke. The shield that warded them cracked, and oven-breath seeped through the gaps to sear their lungs.
She fell to the stone.
* * *
Temoc fought the King in Red. The gods’ power was his. Immense strength, battering the Craftsman to a standstill. He drew his knife and it splintered the staff, chipped it, sheared it in half.
He kicked out the back of the skeleton’s knee, caught its spine in the crook of his elbow, tightened. Bone creaked. Craftwork sparked and spasmed against him. Seconds more.
Temoc laughed, in the fullness of his power. “Why haven’t we done this before?”
“Because,” Kopil said, “I never needed to get you into position.”
* * *
Blur and whirlwind, dust and smoke, shadow and light, all coalesced into two arrested forms, the King in Red in Temoc’s grip.
And Chimalli had the shot.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
* * *
Elayne was too far away, but still she thought she heard the crossbow’s string, a single note plucked on the bass of the world.
* * *
Chimalli fell. The crossbow slipped from his fingers.
Chel stared down at the weapon in her hand, still singing its one note. She looked up again. The King in Red roared, threw Temoc back, and turned toward her. His eyes burned bright as he raised his hand.
She did not tremble, though she was afraid.
* * *
Elayne saw the captain fall, crossbow bolt through his neck. She saw the Craft the King in Red invoked, which she could have stopped, so easily, the slightest flick of her will even at this distance. But she was bound.
And so she saw, too, the round hole appear in Chel’s forehead, before she fell.
Tay screamed. She barely heard him.
Temoc tackled the King in Red, an instant too late.
He struck Kopil in the chest with a blow that would have shattered marble, and the skeleton staggered. Temoc hit him again, and again. The King in Red swept his arm around—the hand with which he’d killed Chel—and Temoc seized it and moved faster than even Elayne could see. Kopil’s wrist bent at a sharp angle, and there was a sound like a shot, of wards giving way.
Then the King in Red swelled, and his teeth grew long and the sparks in his eyes sharp and fierce as any hell. He thrust out his staff, and Temoc flew back through the air. His scars burned to seize the edges of the Craft that held him, but this Craft had no edge, just an endless torrent of will. The King in Red could not last long with such power in him—his mind would shatter in ten seconds, but he needed less than ten.
Temoc was about to die.
As the people of Chakal Square had died. As their risen remnants died. As Chel died.
And now Temoc. Old soldier. Broken shell. Father. Fool.
While Elayne stood in her circle, immune, because she played the game. Because she kept her word. And because she played the game she would be
allowed these few she’d saved, scorched and shattered, to live as testament to the futility of change. Scraps at the table. The King in Red might pay their hospital bills, if it amused him.
She closed her eyes. They stung from smoke and other things. Through the forest of contracts and bargains and powers the King in Red called down, she saw the Quechal gods, shrunken to angry shades and fading, power spent in their rush toward victory. Betrayers and last casualties of Chakal Square.
No, not last. They would die first, and then Temoc.
She could not do this. Not her place. Not her fight. Not now, after sixty years of a chosen side.
For the first and last time in her life, Elayne Kevarian prayed.
Not to the gods above, traitors and accursed. Not to the gods of her childhood, whose people had hunted her through wood and field. Not to the Lord of Alt Coulumb or the squid kings of Iskar or the Shining Empire Thearchs. She prayed up, and in, and out, in broken desperation, in case something might hear.
Save him.
Please.
The answer came at once, so sudden and swift she mistook it for wishful thinking: a cold rush that covered her skin. But there was a mind beneath and behind the answer: cold, vast and alien and personal at once, a voice she’d known since she first caught a falling star, a voice to which time was something other people did.
How? it asked.
So little power left. The King in Red blocked Temoc’s avenues of retreat. The Quechal gods’ might was all but spent keeping him alive.
As, in Chakal Square and the Skittersill around, the last of the gripfire’s fuel gave up. Flame danced on rooftops, on corpses—no longer the King in Red’s fire, but anyone’s for the claiming.
She felt the fire through the dream map she’d drawn. Gathered it into her hands: not much power but, she hoped, enough.
Here, she said. Use this. Might have said more, set terms and conditions, proposed a bargain or a contract. She did not.
Was she mad? She heard no rage in that voice, no vengeance, no hunger. Had she merely committed the oldest error, called for aid in extremity and imagined a voice to answer her?
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