by Tim Lebbon
Ducianne drained her bottle of rotwine and leaned an elbow on the Duke’s skull. “Few defenses,” she said. “Little opposition. They were totally unprepared, and their fight was nothing to speak of. I sent a scout by air as we approached, and he came back with news of a few small embankments on the approaches to the city. Some militia hiding in holes, like rats. Most of them appeared drunk and unconscious. There were some road traps-holes dug and covered over again. But only on the roads, as though they expected us to march on them in line. In one or two places the scout saw more-determined preparations: fire pits, trip ropes, stores of arrows and bolts in firing stations in the trees. Just a few hard places in a belt around the city filled with hollows.
“We went straight through them. I took on a firing post myself, and the militia there couldn’t even shoot straight! I rode in on my machine and their arrows fell around us, and none of them hit, not one. My machine took down the tree and I finished them hand to hand. There were three of them; one dead from the fall, the other two ready to fight because that was their only choice. No soldiers, these. They wore the uniforms of Noreelan militia but they were fat and slow and confused. Probably spent their time drinking and eating and fucking the whores in Long Marrakash. I killed them quickly and mounted again, and we rode on.
“It didn’t take long to break the defenses and reach the city gates. We lost one Krote in that time, though I don’t know how he died. His machine came on with us. Strange. It seemed aimless, as if the Krote had been its brain.” Ducianne bit the cork from a fresh bottle of rotwine and took a long draft. “By the Black, this stuff is fucking evil.”
“The city?” Lenora asked. She was eager to know, but also somewhat deflated. If Long Marrakash-home of the Duke, the supposed ruler of Noreela-had been this easy, then what of the rest of the land? Would there be any real fighting? Would the Krotes have a chance to prove themselves? Lenora could remember the rout during the Cataclysmic War, vicious and brutal and costly-areal fight. Back then, though, magic had been available to both sides, not only one.
She was a soldier; she did not want to feel like a farmer slaughtering cattle.
“The city,” Ducianne said. “What city? Not much left of Long Marrakash now. A few arrows, a few crossbow bolts were fired at us, about as troublesome as flies to a hawk. The flying machines had landed inside, and their riders were already causing chaos, attacking militia buildings and spreading panic. I’d told them to decapitate as many as they could: there’s nothing like a headless body or a bodiless head to send the fear of the Black into someone.” Ducianne tapped her fingers on the Duke’s forehead and laughed.
“The gates didn’t take very long, though we lost a machine there. The militia had set up a fire curtain, and when the first Krote rode to the gate and started taking it down, the oil fell and ignited. One dead Krote, and the machine was made largely of wood. It ran away on fire. I never saw it stop, so perhaps it’s still running, somewhere.
“Once inside, my force split up. I’d instructed them to stay in groups of ten and cause as much panic as they could. The whole city was echoing with screams, and I could hear the thud of heads parted from bodies. I took a few militia prisoner and tortured them. Asked them where the Duke was hiding.”
“How did you torture them?” Lenora asked. She was enjoying the story; Ducianne always had been one for bloody detail, and right now Lenora could think of nothing better. The whole of Noreela will swim in blood, she thought, remembering the vision Angel had given her. But then there was a sigh in her mind-not her own-and the thought, And with everything in Noreela gone, what of the victors?
“With these,” Ducianne said, pulling two thin, curved knives from her belt. “Had no time for pleasantries like acid, or spider venom, or crushing their balls with hot coals.”
“I’m sure you made do.”
“I worked on a different organ with each until one of them told me what I needed to know. Didn’t take long. The Duke was living in a whorehouse run by the Cantrass Angels.” She sliced meat from the cooking sheebok and ate, smacking her lips and washing it down with more rotwine. “There were fires all over by then! Machines spitting arrows and blades. Corpses in the streets. Heads pinned above doors. I took a few myself, but I had an aim now: the Duke. And I trusted my Krotes to do what had to be done.”
“By the Black, I can’t wait to reach Noreela City!” Lenora said. She eyed her friend’s second rotwine bottle, half-empty. She did not need a drunken lieutenant when they rode again soon…but this was Ducianne’s hour.
“That will be a joy,” Ducianne agreed. “I’m glad I’ll be there with you. It’ll make Long Marrakash look like a spit in a lake.”
“I hope so,” Lenora said, and from afar she heard the shade voice echo, I hope so.
“So I found the whorehouse at the center of the city. Those Cantrass Angels, Lenora…”
“They’re a strange breed.”
“Strange? One of them came out naked and started to worship a machine! The Krote cut her in two and both parts kept moving. Not conscious, notdoing anything, but they shifted in the dust like two halves of a sea snake. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the snow tribes on Dana’Man weren’t that strange.”
“The Cantrass Angels have a history that disappears in time,” Lenora said.
“Well, they’re extinct now. At least those who were in Long Marrakash. We killed them as they came out, and soon the ground was crawling with bits of them. Arms. Legs. Even with their heads off, their mouths and eyes moved for a while.”
“The Duke?”
“I went for him myself. Took three Krotes with me. We killed the few militia inside; they were doped up on rhellim, fighting with hard-ons. How pathetic is that? So we went through them, and I carried a head in each hand when I entered the room where the Duke was hiding. He was a fat, naked, stinking old man. His sweat stank of rhellim, but even then his cock was limp as a landed fish. He was covered in welts. I think the Cantrass Angels had been whipping him.”
“Did you talk to him?”
Ducianne smiled, stroking the Duke’s cheek. “To begin with I was just going to kill him, but I came over all poetic. You’d have been proud. You’re wont to poetic musings yourself, on occasion.”
“What shit are you talking?”
“I’ve seen you.” Ducianne’s eyes glittered with humor. “You go into some other place in your head, more so since we’ve landed here. Poetic musings. Justice for Noreela. That’s what you’re imagining, I know.”
“That and other things,” Lenora said. That lake of blood…nothing left…a victory with no rewards but revenge…
Ducianne laughed and swigged some more rotwine. “So! There he was, this fat, stinking excuse for a man, his whores cut to pieces and his cock trying to hide from me. I dropped a head and drew my sword, but he couldn’t take his eyes from my face. I smiled at him. He smiled back. He actually believed…well, perhaps it was the rhellim still in his system.”
“Dispense with the buildup and tell me what he said!” Lenora sliced a chunk of meat from the roasting sheebok and took a bite. Hot, juicy, fresh; after so long on the barren Dana’Man, she might never get used to Noreelan food again.
“I asked him what he’d give me for his life,” Ducianne said. “I told him who my masters were, though he already knew. And I told him I’d been sent by them to negotiate a surrender. I said that his militia were fighting fiercely and bravely all across Noreela, and that we were willing to accept capitulation rather than see endless bloodshed and slaughter. So…I asked him what he’d give for his life.”
“And?”
“‘Take Noreela,’ he said.” Ducianne spat. “So I took his head. Slowly. He screamed until I hit his spine, then he just hissed. I held up his head and showed him his fat, repugnant body. Then I went outside and stuck it on the front of my machine. By the Black, I wish I could have found his crown!”
Lenora laughed, spitting meat into the fire and hearing it sizzle away to nothing. “
Now, that would have been poetry,” she said. “So, what then?”
“We stayed in the city for a few hours and enjoyed ourselves. Killed some more, let some escape to spread the word. We marked them all. From some we took a whole limb, from others a finger. Everyone that escaped bears the evidence of our visit. We met a little more resistance-a few bands of militia who gave us some sport-but they were no match for the machines. In total, we lost the wooden machine at the city gates and four Krotes.”
“That’s good, Ducianne,” Lenora said. She looked around at the warriors celebrating by firelight, some dancing, other sitting and swapping stories as they drank. “I only hope we’re up to the challenge.”
“Of course we are! How can you doubt it?”
Lenora shrugged, instantly regretting her show of uncertainty. “Krotes are trained to fight, but this is a slaughter. They’ve experienced skirmishes, but this will be a sustained war.” Someone laughed, someone else shouted. Lenora hoped the time would not come when she heard sobs or-worse-loaded silences mixed in with the celebrations of some future victory.
“Huh!” Ducianne drank more rotwine and looked away, angry or perturbed.
You don’t know Noreela, Lenora thought. But she would never say it.
And yet, Lenora’s own sword arm ached with the need to fight again. The village they had recently taken had offered nothing but bleating women and pleading men, and the children had died with a whimper. Perhaps it really will be this easy, she thought. And if so…what comes later?
Me, a voice said, softer than her own heartbeat.
Stay away, Lenora thought. Just for a while, please stay away.
“Do you know where they are?” Ducianne asked quietly.
Lenora shook her head. “They have their purposes,” she said. “The Mages’ time will come later.”
“When there’s nothing left of Noreela?”
“There’salways something of Noreela,” Lenora said, disturbed that Ducianne had verbalized her fears. And as she stood ready to order the march on Noreela City, she wondered whether she was only trying to convince herself.
THE KROTES BROKE camp and prepared for their journey to Noreela City. Those with flying machines took off, heading south to reconnoiter. Lenora ordered them not to land in the city until the ground force was visible from the walls and gates. The panic would be widespread then, the fear heavy, and a sudden assault from above would provide the distraction Lenora needed to drive her army through whatever outer defenses there might be.
What are we looking for here? Ducianne had asked.
Destroy the city, Lenora replied. It’s a symbol. We raze it to the ground and whatever backbone Noreela has left is snapped.
There was much banter between Krotes, pledges made and wagers placed, and Lenora rode amongst them to give encouragement. And she in turn took encouragement. Many of Ducianne’s Krotes were blooded from their victims in Long Marrakash, and they looked terrifying. Is it really going to be this easy? Lenora thought again. She ordered them to move out, and a thousand machines began their relentless march southward.
Lenora rode at the head of her army. She sat astride her machine and urged it on, faster and faster until she had to strap herself to its back to avoid being thrown. They emerged from the mouth of a large valley and entered an area of sparse woodland, most of the trees shedding their leaves now that sunlight was absent. Animals scattered before them, some escaping into holes or climbing trees, others being crushed beneath machine feet. The noise of the Krote advance was relentless: the pounding of metal, stone and timber feet, the gasping and grunting of machines drawing air or venting steam and other gases, the occasional shout of a warrior calling to a friend. The army was a storm front scoring across the ground, sweeping before it any pretense at normality or peace. Lenora shouted out, holding the leather straps tied to her machine as she stood and spun a slideshock around her head.
This is good, she thought. This is what I’m here for. This is why Angel made me live!
Makemelive, that voice said.
Lenora nodded. Soon.
TWO HOURS AFTER leaving camp, Lenora heard a rumbling sound from above and behind. She turned in her seat, thinking, It’s them! Most Krotes were looking back, weapons drawn, ready for battle.
Lenora saw the dozen shadows dipping from above, silhouetted against the death moon to the north. No two shapes were alike. A few seemed huge, others were quite small. Wings waved, while some seemed to fly by more arcane means. On the back of every shape rode an upright figure, clasping on to leather reins or waving a weapon around their head when they saw the stain of the Krote army beneath them.
The shade at Conbarma had been busy. Lenora had seen it take five times as long to make a flying machine than a walker.
She had left orders for the second wave to bypass Noreela City and head for the wilder places to the south, taking towns, villages and farmsteads wherever they discovered them still occupied. Once the city had fallen, their two forces would combine and head for New Shanti, where they expected to fight their fiercest battle.
“For a moment there…” Ducianne said. She had ridden her machine alongside Lenora’s, sitting upright and still clasping a small crossbow in one hand.
“Scared?” Lenora asked. Her friend glanced at her and looked away again, and Lenora laughed. “I’m fucking with you, Ducianne. For a heartbeat, I thought it was them as well.”
“But what a sight,” her friend said. “I’ve seen hawks flying overhead a thousand times, but never anything like that. Never anything sostrange. ”
“Everything’s strange now,” Lenora said.
Ducianne rode beside her for a while, staring after the shadows fading into the distance. The Krotes on the ground were riding hard and fast; those that had just passed overhead must have been flying at twice the speed of any hawk.
“We’ll be at Noreela City in a few hours,” Lenora said.
Ducianne smiled. “Then the fun begins!”
“I’m the first in.”
“Of course, Mistress,” Ducianne said, but Lenora saw the hint of disappointment in her friend’s eyes.
“Ducianne? You had Long Marrakash.” She nudged the Duke’s head with her foot. She had speared it on a metallic horn on her machine’s back, positioned so that it looked forward toward what they had come to destroy.
Ducianne nodded.
“Noreela City is five times the size of Long Marrakash. There’s plenty for us all. But I’m the first in, Ducianne. I’ve been here before, and I have my own forms of revenge to find in this war.”
“In the city?”
“That’s where it begins,” Lenora said. And then it rolls on, and on. She imagined her route south from the city to New Shanti, where they would kill some Shantasi, then west to Robenna. The time she had there would be long and wonderful. Ducianne had sliced off the Duke’s head slowly so that he knew exactly what was happening. Lenora imagined doing the same to a whole village.
“By the Black, this is a fine time,” she said, but Ducianne had already steered away.
THE HILLS TO the north of Noreela City were high, offering a fine vantage across the capital. And there was much to see. The city was ablaze with contained fires and lamps, its inhabitants doing their best to see away the dark and live out a normal day. The sky above the city was bright, and there was no sign of the flying machines that Lenora knew were there, waiting.
It must have been such a temptation. The city shone like a jewel in the land, a huge place beginning in foothills to the east and ending in a long, flat plain to the west. South of Noreela City were the Widow’s Peaks, though they were too far away to see from here. The flood of firelight seemed to make the land around the city darker than ever before.
Lenora gave her orders, then rode down the hillside on her machine, a dozen Krotes following close behind. The rest of her force would wait for several minutes before commencing their own march down the slopes toward the city walls. By then, Lenora would already be fight
ing in the streets. More symbolism, which Lenora was growing to like: thirteen Krotes, challenging the whole of Noreela City. And the thousand machines that followed would make the defenders’ hearts sink with dread.
The anticipation of the violence to come thrilled her. She hoped that they faced a real fight here, something more involved than the skirmish at Conbarma and the minor clashes they had fought between then and now. She was a warrior who welcomed a fight, but it was more than that setting her muscles aflame and her heart racing: for the first time, this really felt like Noreela. She was riding against the largest city in the land with the Duke’s head speared on the front of her machine, and she knew that the only outcome could be victory. Right now, it was the process of winning that excited her.
Old wounds ached. Her shoulders and neck, stomach, right thigh and left ankle, her deformed scalp and pitted cheeks and left breast, all of them sang with the memories of how their scars had been formed. She thought back to the final few hours she had spent on Noreela three centuries before, and how vicious the fighting had been. Noreelans had been throwing themselves against the Krote army, driving it into the sea and using their own war machines to trample the Mages’ failing magic beneath their feet.
“Things change,” Lenora said into the wind. Her machine was running fast now, leaping down the hillside and sprinting for the long, open area that led to the city’s large north gate. The gate was shut, and there were signs that a series of defenses had been erected before the walls.
She drew a sword, strapped a crossbow to her left forearm, checked the weapons on her belt, the braces crossing her chest and the quivers tied across her back. “Good! Fight for your land, you cowards. Give me something to dream about in the future.”Something to dream about as I make my way to you, she thought, sending her words out and hoping they were heard.
She turned to check the Krotes charging with her. As instructed they were a hundred steps behind, driving their own machines hard to keep up. Some of their mounts gasped fire; others breathed ice. Blue sparks splashed from their rides’ feet where they connected with the land.
