The Legion of Flame

by Anthony Ryan

  “We have three days until Ore Day,” Lizanne said. “Do everything you can to shore up their resolve before then.”

  “The main device?” Demisol asked.

  “It’ll be ready,” she said, choosing not to share the news about the interruption to Tinkerer’s work. She had visited him the night after the parley to collect the contents of the sack, finding him almost completely absorbed in his labour.

  “Repairing the winding-gear will take only half a day,” he had said, apparently incapable of raising his gaze from the large iron-and-copper egg on his work-bench. “Subject to provision of suitable materials.” Such industriousness scarcely seemed possible to her but then Tinkerer, as Aunt Pendilla would have said, was cut from cloth of a different weave.

  “And that?” Lizanne asked, nodding to the egg.

  “Nearing completion.” He reached for a cylindrical component and carefully slotted it into the egg’s exposed innards, his slender fingers moving with an almost loving grace. “Mixing the compound will take longer, however.”

  “How many did you bring?” Demisol asked, nodding at the sack at Lizanne’s feet. She hefted it onto the defaced dining-table and revealed the contents.

  “Twelve in total,” she said, as the two revolutionaries inspected the sack’s contents. “Two with fifteen-minute fuses, the rest only three seconds so make sure your people know to throw them the moment they’re primed. What other weapons have you gathered?”

  “Knives and clubs, mostly. Though we have two citizens skilled with bow and arrow.”

  “Tell them to kill any gunners that survive. Just one blast of canister and our whole enterprise will be lost.”

  “We seem to be putting great faith in our fellow inmates,” Demisol commented. “How do we know they’ll respond as we hope?”

  “We don’t,” Lizanne admitted. “But would you hesitate to risk your life for the smallest chance of escaping this place?”

  • • •

  She jammed a chair under the door-handle and sat on her bed, mouth wide as she inserted the pliers Tinkerer had grudgingly parted with. They left a metallic sting on her tongue before clamping onto the ceramic tooth. She had lost the original in a confrontation with a rival corporate agent some years before and Director Bloskin, never one to forsake an opportunity, had introduced Lizanne to the appointed dentist for Exceptional Initiatives. The procedure required hours in his chair and copious doses of Green but by the end of it she had a new tooth. It was fixed to the root of the original with a gold screw, meaning it could be removed and replaced. The ceramicist the Brotherhood found for her in Corvus had been exceptionally skilled, producing a near-perfect facsimile of an upper-right molar with a hollow cavity large enough for a small amount of product. The screw loosened after several seconds of uncomfortable effort as Lizanne tried not to damage her surrounding teeth. Blue flooded her mouth as it came free, burning as she swallowed, finding a certain joy in the sensation of recovered power. Life as an un-Blessed, she was finding, was not much to her liking.

  Hyran’s mindscape closed in immediately, in surprisingly accomplished and lurid detail. At least he’s been practising, she thought, watching the pale youth in mid-cavort with a swirling cloud of naked female flesh. Glimpses into the carnal imaginings of fellow Blood-blessed were a frequent feature of the trance, usually tactfully ignored by unspoken understanding. However, she had yet to trance with someone who appeared to have crafted his entire mindscape from the stuff of adolescent lust.

  Sorry if I’m interrupting. Lizanne put enough force into the thought to banish the swirl of phantom nymphs, but not before catching sight of their faces. All the same and all familiar. It’s heartening to learn you have such an acute visual memory, she went on as the boy’s image gaped at her, a frozen lanky thing in the suddenly confused mist. In which case, she added with a pointed downward glance, I’m sure you can remember what clothes look like.

  The surrounding clouds flushed a deep shade of crimson, roiling thick enough to obscure Hyran’s image. When they cleared he stood fully clothed and eyes averted, the shade of his mortification lingering in the clouds.

  I . . . His thoughts stuttered, sending bolts of lightning through the clouds and for a moment it seemed as if his loss of concentration would shatter the trance.

  Calm. She coloured the thought with a soothing memory, the day Aunt Pendilla pressed a damp cloth to her grazed knee and banished infant tears with chicken soup. Focus. I don’t have long.

  Sorry. The clouds were still pulsing red, though now shot through with the dark grey of his regret. Been trancing every day . . . Tried building a castle or something, like you said. But . . . I got bored waiting.

  I’m here now. Are you in contact with Citizens Korian and Arberus?

  Yes. We’re only a few miles from Scorazin. Been gathering strength, like you wanted.

  Show me.

  He summoned the memory with surprising alacrity. It seemed his self-indulgence had paid off in tutoring him in efficient command of the trance. A dense patch of cloud swirled into the image of a campsite. Arberus sat close to a fire in the foreground, cleaning his revolver, prolonged tension clear in the depth of his furrowed brow. Beyond him Korian could be seen in animated disagreement with a cluster of young men and women. Fortunately, Hyran hadn’t thought to summon the sound so she was spared the gabble of revolutionary dogma.

  How many in total? she asked.

  Two hundred and fifty-six, he replied promptly, causing her to assume Arberus had made him memorise the details of the small army. All mounted and armed with repeating carbines. Two small cannon, also.

  Will any more be coming?

  Korian expects another thirty by the end of the week. This is pretty much all that remains of the Brotherhood in this region.

  It was hardly a force capable of storming the walls of Scorazin, but if her plan worked it wouldn’t have to. Tell them to move into a position where they can assault the guard-house at Scorazin. They need to be ready to attack in three days. She felt the trance shudder around her as the Blue began to ebb. I have to go. The signal will come an hour after midday. If it doesn’t . . . tell Citizen Arberus this mission has failed and I believe he would be better employed in Feros than here.

  What will it be? The signal.

  If this works, an earthquake strong enough to shake an empire.

  • • •

  “Melina said you weren’t working tonight.” Makario stood in her doorway, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and what appeared to be some form of musical instrument in the other. “Me neither. Seems I’m surplus to requirements without music.”

  “What is that?” she asked, peering at the curious thing he held, presumably the product of considerable effort over the three days since the parley. It appeared to be the result of an uncomfortable mating between a mandolin and a viola.

  “My newest creation.” He handed her the wine-bottle and took hold of the instrument, fingers stroking an unfamiliar but nevertheless pleasant note from the six strings strung along its narrow neck. “The bastard child born of my fevered mind, and the scraps of every instrument I could trade for within these walls.” His fingers moved again, conjuring a jaunty tune she recognised as a Varestian sea shanty. “I doubt I could do justice to Illemont with it,” he said, finishing with a flourish, “but I think it’ll keep a roof over my head until we can repair my true love. I do need some practice, however. Perhaps you’d like to help.”

  She had adduced at their first meeting that Makario was unlikely to have much interest in her womanly charms, but now saw an entreaty in his gaze that went deeper than a desire for drunken companionship. “I have a prior appointment,” she said, handing back the wine.

  “Put it off,” he insisted, summoning a poorly rendered smile to his lips. “Staying indoors is by far the safest course in such troubled times.”

  “Would that
I could. But I also have to keep a roof over my head.”

  “I’m sure whatever errand our dear leader has you running can wait. At least for tonight.”

  “Why? What happens tomorrow?”

  She held his gaze as the smile slipped from his face. Best to subdue him now, the professional part of her mind advised. Extract what information you can. Break his neck and leave him at the bottom of the stairs for Melina to find in the morning, victim of a drunken stumble. And without the pianola what use was he anyway?

  Instead she just stood and watched as he retreated a few steps, face alternating between fear and charm. “I . . . really wish you’d stay,” he managed finally, adding in a desperate whisper, “please!”

  “It doesn’t matter, Makario,” she told him. “Whatever it is. Whatever you did. I’m sure you had your reasons and I really don’t care. If you’re in league with Julesin I assume you’ve warned him I’m coming, and that doesn’t matter either.”

  Makario became very still, the neck of his hybrid instrument creaking under the strain of a suddenly white-knuckled grip. “I am not in league with him,” he stated in a soft voice, each word spoken very precisely.

  Lizanne sighed around a smile. “Best stay off the roof-tops tomorrow,” she said, and closed the door.

  • • •

  She had spent the previous two nights reconnoitring the semicircular row of terraced houses on Prop Lane where the Scuttlers made their headquarters. The row curved around a patch of dirt that had once been a small park in the centre of which stood a large marble plinth, home to a long-vanished statue to some forgotten Scorazin luminary. A narrow alley opposite the park made for a useful vantage point. It was rarely visited by the Coal King’s minions thanks to its proximity to a part-collapsed sewer drain. The stench was just short of unbearable but Lizanne’s nostrils had an habituated resistance to the more repellent miasmas of life.

  Her first journey here had brought another near encounter with the tall, cloaked creeper she had seen the night she made her way to Tinkerer’s abode. She found a convenient corner to hide behind as the stooped figure passed by, once again dragging something. Given the legendary degeneracy of the night creepers she assumed it would be a body and was surprised to see it was in fact a sack, filled with something heavy that scraped filth from the cobbles as the figure disappeared into Keg Road. Bones? she wondered, but doubted it. More likely stolen ore. In either case it was a mystery she had no time or inclination to solve.

  Julesin proved to be a fellow of unwisely regular habits. He would arrive from the coal pits at the same time, under heavy escort, whereupon he would enter the centremost house in the row. The windows in this house glowed brighter than the others, and the smoke rose more thickly from its chimney, making it easily identifiable as the Coal King’s domicile. Whilst the king himself was never seen out of doors in the hours of darkness, Julesin would eventually re-emerge to make a tour of the guards. There were only two other Scuttlers with him as he made his way around the perimeter. He seemed to command great respect amongst the guards, or more likely fear since he was not shy in administering punishment. Lizanne saw him send one droopy-eyed unfortunate to the ground with a vicious back-hand cuff then stand by as his two escorts kicked the man unconscious. Consequently, she had little chance of evading detection here as she did regularly at the sulphur pits. There was only one point in Julesin’s nightly routine that offered a workable opportunity. Having completed his tour he would linger on a bench alongside the plinth. The two escorts would retire a short distance whilst Julesin sat smoking a cigarillo, the tip glowing red in the gloom.

  A decent aiming point for a ranged weapon, Lizanne decided on the second night. It was far less subtle than she would have liked, entailing a swift ground-level escape as the surrounding guards reacted. Still, she had no other options besides making use of one of Tinkerer’s timed grenades and they were needed for Ore Day. Also, she would have had to explain to the Electress where it came from. Fortunately, King Coal himself had seen fit to provide the means by which she could assassinate his lieutenant.

  She had been obliged to practise in the basement of the Miner’s Repose, Scorazin being somewhat lacking in open spaces where one could loose a cross-bow without being noticed. At her request, Melina harvested the darts from the bodies left in the wake of the Scuttlers’ attack, each wrapped with cloth to avoid contact with the poison that still lingered on the barbed steel-heads. The ingenious loading and drawing mechanism would have been easily operated with a drop of Green in her veins. Without it she found herself capable of loosing off only two darts before the strain on her limbs forced a pause. Realistically, this meant only one shot at Julesin. Gauging the effective range of the weapon had been a simple matter of arithmetic. The basement was fifteen yards long at its widest point and repeated practice shots at a wooden board revealed the darts would lose one inch of altitude for every six point eight yards travelled. Working out the correct angle of elevation for a kill-shot was therefore a relatively straightforward exercise.

  She watched Julesin complete his nightly inspection then take his place on the bench, smoke blossoming as he lit his cigarillo. The gurgle arising from the exposed sewer provided enough noise to cover the sound as she primed the cross-bow, the string sliding back and dart slotting into place with a pleasing mechanical elegance. Whoever had crafted the weapon had seen fit to equip it with both front and rear sights, crudely fashioned from hammered tin but still accurate. She centred the front sight on the glowing tip of Julesin’s cigarillo, meaning the dart would bury itself squarely in the centre of his chest. She took a shallow breath and squeezed the trigger as she exhaled. The cross-bow jerked in her grip as the string snapped forward, the dart streaking away. It covered the distance to Julesin’s chest in a fraction of a second, whereupon it froze in mid air, an inch or two short of its target.

  Julesin’s cigarillo glowed brighter as he got to his feet, eyes fixed on where Lizanne lay prone in the filthy alley. It was obvious he could see her, and had most likely done so for the previous two nights. Green and Black, she realised, mind racing as she calculated her options. Julesin, however, didn’t allow her the time to formulate an escape plan.

  An invisible hand jerked the cross-bow from her grip, sending it spinning into the dark. She tried to roll away but the Black closed on her with suffocating force, lifting and dragging her from the alley. Julesin seemed to be in no particular hurry, standing still and continuing to smoke as he slowly drew her to him. He was evidently highly skilled in the use of Black, as he kept the dart she had loosed at him suspended in mid air. He halted her a few feet away, lifting her body so that she faced him. The dart flipped over and rose to hover parallel with her left eye.

  Julesin stood regarding her in silence, head tilted in appraisal as the dart inched closer. Lizanne found she couldn’t close the lid of her eye as the tip of the dart came within a hair’s width of her pupil, where it lingered for a very long moment.

  “Just joking,” Julesin said, the dart making a loud ping on the cobbles as he allowed it to fall. There was an odd note of sympathy in his voice as he stepped closer, offering an apologetic grimace. “And, as one professional to another, I’m sorry about all this.”

  The Black closed in with increased force, clamping onto her throat, making her lungs burn and vision turn first red then black as the void claimed her.

  CHAPTER 28

  Clay

  Clay came awake to a warm sensation in his leg, as if it were being caressed by a summer breeze. His eyelids fluttered over gritted orbs, harsh light birthing an instant ache in his head. He tried to move but found his entire body constrained somehow. More rapid blinking revealed him to be sitting on the stone floor of the chamber, his back pressed against something hard and unyielding. Looking down he saw ropes tightly bound across his chest and realised he had been tied to one of the pillars. He strained against the ropes, grunting with the effort,
then stopped as an important fact rose to the forefront of his awareness: his leg didn’t hurt anymore.

  Lowering his gaze, he found himself gaping in frozen disbelief. The bandage was gone and so was his wound. Not scabbed or scarred over, but gone. His denuded and ravaged flesh had been remade, leaving a hairless but otherwise whole segment of skin and muscle. The warm sensation he had awoken to was revealed as the result of a beam of light descending from above to bathe his leg in a soft, greenish luminescence. His gaze instinctively tracked along the beam to where it connected with the crystal floating above. It still cast a more intense beam down on the segmented egg but for some reason had seen fit to cast out another. The mystery and novelty of it provoked a laugh as his toes flexed and the movement failed to produce the expected blast of pain, a laugh that died as a voice spoke to him.

  His head jerked up to find a slender figure standing a few feet away. Clay had no difficulty in recognising the woman who had shot him. She was now clothed in what he recognised as the spare trousers and shirt presumably taken from Loriabeth’s pack, with the silver belt still fastened about her waist. It seemed to be formed of some kind of metallic material from the way it caught the light, and was bulky with several large pouches and an empty holster, presumably for the gun she had used to shoot him.

  Memories of the gun caused him to look down at his chest, searching for any sign of injury and finding nothing. He couldn’t even see a tear in his shirt, but there was a faint ache from a spot just above his sternum, not truly painful but present enough to signify a livid bruise. Whatever she had shot him with, it hadn’t been a bullet.

  He saw that she still held the gun, though now it was lowered to her side and he took some comfort from the fact that her finger wasn’t on the trigger. Seeing it clearly, Clay wasn’t sure “gun” was the right term. It seemed to be made of a combination of brass and steel, with a pistol-like grip that confirmed it as some kind of weapon. But it lacked a cylinder, and the barrel was too short and narrow for anything but the puniest projectile. There was a finery to the weapon’s construction that was beyond Clay’s experience, so many different components formed into a single device. He knew he was looking at something beyond the skill or knowledge of any gunsmith or artificer in the world above.