“Not alone,” Myre replied. “I swore an oath to fight till the end.”
“It's not quite the end yet,” Rommond said, though he saw it fast approaching.
Myre said no more, but he stood with the general, still fearful, but resolute. Rommond saw that in him when he promoted him. He also saw the youth. He saw it more now, when he knew he was likely assigning him to his doom.
The other men took out their guns. A few mumbled half-hearted words of resolve, but their eyes betrayed them, as did the the shaking of their hands. Fear came before any advancing force, and it took out many without a single shot. If they tried to shoot back with those hands, they would likely miss.
They were eight in number, not even ten percent of the horde of leather and iron.
“We'll have to make each of us count,” Rommond said. “Remember, men, we've always been outnumbered. And here we are, one way or another, ending this war.”
And so the fire came.
The first jet of flame reached out over thirty metres. There was no one in its path, but it fulfilled its aim: sending fear before them even faster. The light illuminated the black armour and black masks. Even the coverings of the eyes were dark. These troops did not really need to see. They were here to burn everything.
Rommond's men split apart, spreading out as he gestured for them to take cover. They hid behind the upturned landships, but only those at the front of the battlefield. They could not retreat any further or they would leave the carrier exposed. If that was set alight, the aim of it all was lost.
Rommond used a rifle from one of his fallen comrades to make his first shot. It only had a single bullet left, with most already wasted on the mines, but it was enough. There were a lot of fallen rifles littered around the sand, and not enough hands to use them. The bullet struck one of the closest fire-flingers straight in the forehead. He halted suddenly, then toppled forward, still clutching his flamethrower. His mate instinctively unleashed a jet of flame before him, but was still out of range to hit the general.
Then the other Resistance fighters unleashed a spray of bullets into the oncoming force, killing several of them, making them look a little less daunting than they did before.
And then the gas came.
The first came in a barrel, launched from a modified artillery gun parked far back with the troop carriers, which formed a black wall across the horizon. The barrel burst open in the midst of the Resistance soldiers, swiftly unleashing a green cloud of vapour, which spread out in all directions, thick and blinding. They were now the vermin-killers, here to weed out the rats.
Rommond yanked open the escape hatch of the upturned landship he hid behind and crawled inside. On its side, it was difficult to get his bearings, but this was not the first time he was in a vehicle like this. He quickly rummaged through the debris, pushing the bodies of the driver and gunner out of the way. He was certain that there was a gas mask in there somewhere, but he could not find it. He could barely see anything. If it was not the night, which entered with him, it was the dark of the interior itself. Everything was charred from the explosion that knocked the vehicle over, even the faces of its unmoving occupants. Even the gas mask that he eventually put his fingers on. Much of it was burned clean through.
He clambered swiftly back outside, where the green cloud was expanding, and the black-masked horde was approaching. He could no longer see his companions, but he could hear periodic gunfire, along with the screams and shouts of someone, punctured by his vomiting. If he was lucky, he would vomit blood. It would be over quicker then. Yet it would never be over quick enough.
Rommond dived out into the clear air, dodging a wall of flame that spat out from a nearby gun, and charged towards another fallen landship. That one was less damaged than the previous, but it was a lot more out in the open, in the eyeline of the fire-flingers, and not long before it was in their jet-line as well. He pulled at the escape hatch door, but it would not budge. It was buckled slightly on one side. Brute force alone would not do it, and yet he had to try. He could already feel the good air fleeing from the battlefield, not just from his frantic tussle. He could already see the sky darkening, not just from the encroaching night.
He felt a sudden heat and only narrowly missed the lashing tongue of flame that came at him. It singed the whiskers of his moustache and left little embers in the rim of his cap. As he span away, he unleashed his pistol, firing two shots. It was more than he needed, he knew, but he was caught off guard. That would get you killed. Yet, having no bullets left would do it too.
The fire-flinger crashed to the ground, almost falling into his own flame. It was then that Rommond thought to grab the gas mask from the corpse. It remained just a thought, however, because another approached behind him, and another, both alive and breathing fire.
Rommond barely had time to pull the trigger before a stream of fire whisked by him as he ran. He was forced to dive into the toxic cloud, gasping one last puff of fresh air before he disappeared inside. From there, laying with his back on the ground, he could barely make out the shapes of people and objects outside. He had to hope they were as blinded by their goggles as he was by the stinging vapour. He also had to hope they did not stray too far, because he was going on guesswork now to fire his remaining bullets.
The first clearly hit, because he heard the squelch of flesh, and the squeal of the man it entered. The second struck metal, and the third seemed to make no noise at all. Who knew what it hit further afield. The fourth—there was no fourth, he realised, as the revolver clicked idly. He was out. He knew his pistol was out too. That one he had kept track of. There were cartridges and bullet boxes in the landships. He even recalled feeling one as he searched for the gas mask, but never thought to grab it in the frenzy.
And now his breath was out too.
He gasped, feeling the first needle-points of the gas prick away at his lungs. He coughed, then tried to disguise the cough, knowing it would lead the fire-flingers to him. He covered his mouth and nose with the edge of his coat and tried not to suck in any more of the noxious fumes, but his lungs chugged along like little pumps and pistons on autopilot. If he took a breath, he would soon die. Yet if he did not breathe, he would die even swifter.
Better to burn than go like this, he thought.
So he rolled back out into the open, where he was greeted with a breath of fire.
20 – BLACKOUT IN BLACKOUT
The alarm did not go off in Blackout. Those who would raise the alarm were dead. Throughout the city, while the civilians dozed and dreamed, sleeper cells awoke, implementing Plan 88, silently killing off any remaining guards, taking over the guard posts and the gates, and sealing off supply routes. In a matter of hours, the city fell to the Regime, and the only people who knew about it did not know about it for long.
In the Treasury headquarters, the Baroness Ebronah was having a fitful sleep. Her four-poster bed was piled high with blankets. The cold always got to her, and it seemed to get to her more that night. She dreamed of evil things with an icy touch, and felt the frost invade.
When she awoke, something felt different. She had lived in Blackout all her life. She knew the city, and knew when it felt unwell. She had been growing more anxious as Rommond prepared to leave again. Each time he did, the city was left with a skeleton crew to defend it. The Treasury found it hard to fill the gap, no matter how much money they offered. People were motivated by the war now, by a sense of duty, and the lure of heroism and honour. You could not buy people off if they thought like that. The Resistance or the Regime got them for free.
Ebronah put on a night coat and slippers. She went out onto the balcony, hugging her arms as the icy night air embraced her. Blackout was quiet. There were times when the machinery snored through the night, but now it was silent and still. There was a sense of apprehension in the air, the kind she felt just before the Regime rolled into the streets almost a decade before, whe
n Rommond was forced to retreat out into the desert. She did not like feeling it now, and she wondered what might have happened to the general if this evil omen was true.
From this vantage point, like so many other high places in the city, she could see the clock tower rising from the rooftops, its clock face stuck permanently at midnight after the building was abandoned. It was an appropriate, if unintended, symbol for the city, that twilight location that sat between both factions, and went back and forth between them. It also suggested something else to her: that the night was half over, but there was still plenty more night to come.
She saw a light on in the top window, knowing that Codex Carter and his team were working there, utilising new supplies bought with her money, preparing for Rommond's big broadcast to all Regime territory. The general had confided much in her about just how important this piece of the puzzle was. The war could not just be won with bullets. It had to be won in minds as well. The Iron Emperor could fall, but anyone could take his place, and the Iron Empire would continue. The populace needed to know that the Regime as a whole had to go.
Ebronah was lost in her thoughts when she noticed a glimmer of light in the streets below. It was faint, masked by the smog, but it worried her. The little dot of flame, maybe a torch or lantern, bobbed through the streets, winding along, growing fainter here and brighter there, as it travelled the shortest route towards the clock tower.
Fear told her that this was some attacker, but reason made her consider that it might be one of Carter's men, bringing in some extra supplies. That was not supposed to happen at this hour. She insisted that Rommond's curfew was kept, but she was not naïve enough to think that some did not break it. Yet as much as reason was reassuring, the fear did not abate.
She headed back inside, reaching under her bed to pull out a large wooden chest. She unlocked it and rooted through her belongings inside, pulling out an old spyglass, gilded along the edges. This was not a piece of military equipment, like Rommond would use, but something the Treasury had for the old safari expeditions and other luxurious pastimes that no one else could really afford.
She returned to the balcony and peered through the lens at the little bobbing oil-lit lantern, and the man holding it, and the other men nearby that the light betrayed. The magnification was weak, but it showed her enough: she could see the Regime emblem on the left shoulder of the lantern-bearer's uniform.
She rushed back inside, closing the glass-panel doors behind her and pulling the curtains shut. She clutched the spyglass tightly and breathed heavily. She did not know what to do, or who to alert.
Suddenly she heard a clamour downstairs, and she ran to her bedroom door and turned the key. She heard a thunder of footsteps up the stairs and across the landing, followed by the creaking of doors and a mix of hushed and raised voices.
She backed away, casting the key onto her bed sheets. She ran to a large oval mirror facing the bottom of her bed, catching a glimpse of her wrinkled features in the glass. She felt along the edge until she pressed down on a tiny latch, which made the mirror swing open on a hinge. She entered the dark passage it revealed, closing the false wall behind her. As it clicked, she heard the main door of her room burst open, and the bustle of boots that followed.
“Damn,” a voice said. “She isn't here.”
“Did she go with Rommond?”
“Of course she didn't go with him!”
“Well, where did she go then?”
Ebronah tried to calm her frantic breath, putting her hand over her mouth. She leant on the wall to her side with her other hand, and tried to step down the stairs of the dark passage. She was glad she was wearing slippers now, but still the wood creaked. She halted, and almost felt the eyes of the men in the nearby room turn towards her.
“I don't know,” a voice said, “but she isn't going far. We've got the city on lockdown. No one's going anywhere.”
21 – THE FOG OF WAR
Rommond gasped in shock just as much as he gasped for breath. It was not skill that saved him. It was not luck either. He heard the thunderstrike of a rifle and the whistle of a bullet as it sailed towards the fire-flinger standing dangerously close to him, so close that the assailant was in mid-spray of fire. The bullet struck him fast and hard, so hard it shoved him to the side. His grip on the flamethrower weakened mid-fall, and the darting ray of fire halted close to Rommond before being sucked back into the mottled barrel.
No, it was not skill or luck. It was Lieutenant Myre. It was having a comrade, someone to watch your back. He gave a sharp salute from across the dune. Even in his gas mask, you could tell he was really young. But with the rifle, he was as seasoned as they came.
Rommond would have breathed a sigh of relief if he had time to, or if there was air fresh enough to breathe. The green cloud was spreading. Its ghostly fingers reached out to caress him, then to choke him. He recoiled, and the gas dispersed around him, seeking out new victims to maul. In time, only he would be left, and the hands would come for his neck and lungs anew.
He scrambled across the sand, his own hands and feet periodically slipping as the grains gave way beneath him. He swiped at the face of the fire-flinger Myre killed, tearing the gas mask off. The face that greeted him was just as young as Myre's, maybe younger. If this had been the battle's aftermath and not the battle, he might have pined for him. But for now, he had to go kill more boy soldiers.
He placed the gas mask to his face for a moment to take a fuller breath. The glass in the goggles already steamed up, clouding his vision. His lungs ached and his throat was raw, as if the fire-flingers had flung fire straight into his mouth.
You're doing good if this is as bad as it gets, he thought. He could already feel his stomach start to churn. He got out of that gas just in time.
But when fighting the Regime, if you leave the cover of the gas, then the gas-gunners come for you. Rommond had barely managed to fill his lungs when he caught a moving shape from the corner of his eye. He had to pull the mask away to see more clearly, and he saw the gas-gunner with his mutant-shaped mask and bloated backpack, striped across the top with a horrid bisque-coloured paint.
The gunner fired, and Rommond barely got the mask back to his face in time as a yellow chemical sprayed from the gun. The eyelets clogged up with it, and Rommond felt a terrible blistering sensation on the hand that held the mask. He was blind and he was burning, and all he had now were his fists to fight with.
So he fought.
He simultaneously pulled the mask away to see, while his right fist swung in an arc to meet the cheekbone of the gas-gunner. He heard and felt the crunch, but the pain in his left hand helped distract from the right. He threw himself at the man to prevent him firing the acid again, knocking them both to the ground, where the sand leapt away in little yellow clouds of its own. The general bashed at the face of his attacker. It helped that he wore that ugly crow-shaped mask, because it made him look like a monster. He certainly spat venom like one. Rommond made sure he spit blood too.
By the end of it, the gas-gunner put up no fight at all. Rommond's fists were bloodied from the bashing as well as the corrosive spray. He pulled the gloves off the dead soldier's hands and put them on, gritting his teeth as the leather rubbed across the frayed and blistered skin. He glanced around to see if there was another attacker, but all he saw was the growing cloud of gas. He swapped his acid-laced mask for the crow-shaped one. It extended over his entire head, so he had to get rid of his cap as well. He immediately noticed a huge improvement to his sight and breathing. This had been purposefully designed for close-quarters immersion in this chemical spray. He noted that the man's coat was made of a similar material, so abandoned his own for that as well. It felt odd to be wearing Regime attire, especially something as ill-fitting and uncomfortable as this, but it was not the first time he had done it. He hoped it would be the last.
The final piece of the puzzle was the backpack a
nd the attached gun. He heard the liquid slosh around inside as he hauled it into place. He did not have a mirror, but he was sure he looked the part. Any discrepancies would be covered by the green fog.
He stalked through the sand and the smoke, hearing far-off gunfire, and wondering just how far he had strayed from the main fight. He still saw the husks of landships, and here and there a body, and every so often a gun. He took up any pistol he could find, checking it for ammo. Many were out. That's why the people who held them died. A few had a single bullet left. He had no time to take out the bullets and put them all into a single gun. He hoarded all of them in the pockets of his new black leather coat, hearing them clink off one another as the leather squeaked.
Suddenly a group of five gas-gunners marched through the gas ahead of him. Instinct almost made him fire, but he stopped in time. The acid from his gun would do little against these fiends, and there were too many of them for his bullets, and not enough strength left in him to take them on with his hands alone.
He gestured to them, pointing further into the masking vapour, as if he had spotted someone inside. He tried the right measure of confidence and fear for someone who was on the trail of General Rommond, as if they almost had a shot, but were afraid he almost had one too. They must have bought it, because they spread out around the location he pointed to, and three of them went cautiously inside. The other two waited outside with Rommond, all three of them with a slight shudder in their guns, but only one of them was faking it.
With one hand still holding the gas gun, he reached with the other into his pocket, pulling out a pistol. With the speed of a hawk darting towards its prey, he unloaded the bullet into the head of the man to his left, while spraying acid at the man to the right. He knew the latter would not kill him, but it blurred his vision a little and distracted him for just long enough for Rommond to take out a second gun.
Hometaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Action Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 6) Page 9
