by Col Buchanan
It was easy to fall victim to your fears here, easy to simply burrow down under your arms while you tried to hold in the contents of your bowels with what little will remained amidst the panic.
Those men and women dashing about on their feet must be harder than Sharric steel and braver than fools. Indeed, they must be crazy in a way – crazy like those cloudmen in the tales of the Way, cackling in the face of death. How else could they get themselves moving in all this lethality?
He looked to Aléas, likewise cowering behind a nearby block of stone. His friend was staring back at him with wild eyes.
‘I can’t move!’ yelled Nico.
‘Nor I!’
Another explosion struck the top of the barricade, throwing aside bodies and debris. The defenders were sliding back down into better cover, though Nico swore aloud as he glimpsed the lone figure still up there at the top, a woman standing erect as though immune to the blasts.
‘They’re coming!’ the woman roared over her shoulder, and in a burst of fire he saw the pair of axes in her hands and the animal skins covering her body. She was a Redeemer, making her last stand here in the falling city of Bar-Khos.
‘You hear me, they’re coming!’ she roared again at the defenders behind her, but nobody was moving to help, too many still falling back or carrying the wounded clear.
Pinch it off, said an audible voice in Nico’s head, and he knew right away that it was the ghost of Ash, his old Rōshun master.
What do you mean?
Your fear, boy. Pinch it off!
But how?
Easy. Like this.
And just like that it vanished, the crippling terror inside him, and Nico was cool as the running waters of the Bitter River.
‘Come on!’ he shouted to his friend, surging to his feet. Not looking back, Nico scrambled up the slope of the barricade on all fours past soldiers and armed civilians, drawn onwards by the lone woman’s calls.
A harsh wind struck his face as he cleared the crest of rubble. Nico stumbled until he gained his footing. He narrowed his eyes, taking in the smoke blowing towards him across the dark open plaza of a marketplace on the other side. Bodies lay everywhere, though like a high tide they were denser near the foot of the barricade. He spotted movement out there. Enemy infantry, dashing between the remains of the market stalls, keeping their heads low as they neared the barricade, the odd defender taking a shot at them.
Freeing his blade, Nico hopped over to join the woman’s side.
She was about his mother’s age, with her hair knotted in a dark tail that reached all the way down her back. She stared grimly into the marketplace.
‘I hope you can use that blade in your hand, lad,’ she said with a glance to his civilian attire, then nodded to the approaching figures. ‘Those are more assault squads headed our way.’
The enemy was close now, close enough to see the contours of their armour and the puffs of steam from their mouths. One of them fell to a rifle shot and then a squad of them was rushing for the barricade, a good twenty or thirty soldiers with their shields held high.
‘Hurry up, they’re attacking!’ yelled the Redeemer over her shoulder.
A grenade burst at the foot of the outer slope, and Nico crouched down as another one went off even closer, throwing up debris and white smoke. Behind the smoke came figures scrambling up the slope, yelling their Mannian battle cries. Nico hefted the sword in his grasp, readying himself to use it. Rubble shifted by his side, and he was heartened to see Aléas leaping up to join him. The young man flashed a grin, then in the next moment shot an arrow through the throat of an enemy soldier clambering towards him.
Suddenly another archer appeared next to Aléas – the Contrarè man Sky In His Eyes, firing his bow too. Nico gaped, wondering what the Contrarè was doing here in the midst of all this.
It was no time for pondering such details though. A host of imperial infantry were rushing up the rubble right at him, shields held above their helms, shouting each other on. The Redeemer howled and leapt down into their midst, cleaving about her like a woman possessed. She was singing to herself, he could hear through the din – singing the song of her impending death as she cut down as many of the Mannians as she could.
Nico kicked at a soldier’s helm and swung his blade at another, chopping clean through the man’s forearm. Along the top Aléas and the Contrarè man were shooting arrow after arrow in an unspoken duet, leaping about even as they fired, both of them clutching a handful of arrows so they could shoot in rapid succession – two, three, four arrows flashing into the enemy ranks faster than most people could shoot one.
Nico reared back with a desperate parry of an enemy blade, kicking aside a shield so he could thrust his own sword through his attacker’s neck. How easy it had become, this killing of men. Grimacing, Nico snatched a glance back to see more defenders rushing to join them now that the shelling had momentarily ceased. From further down the street, a column of old Molari were rushing to their aid: retired veterans with their chartas and shields.
‘When did you learn how to fight!’ Aléas shouted when he saw Nico’s new-found skill with the blade.
But even as Nico opened his mouth to shout something back a gun cracked out from below, and Aléas staggered and fell to the rubble, his bow clattering over the side.
‘Aléas!’ Nico roared, and impaled a man so fiercely that his blade stuck in the soldier’s armoured stomach. With the strength of rage Nico heaved up a lump of masonry and cast it over the side, buckling an attacker’s shield and dropping the man behind it. He grabbed up another block and threw it at an enemy head, denting his helm. The fellow with the sword stuck through his stomach was still staggering aside, so Nico grabbed the hilt and kicked him clear of the blade.
Yelling out, he leapt upon the enemy with a fury.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Diplomat
‘All right, all right, keep it down, the man’s got something important to say!’
Around the room the chatter faded as the sergeant shouted out for order, striding through the gathered figures with shoves and slaps of their backs, rangers and Volunteers alike.
In his wake stood the cripple, Coya, ruminating over his cane as he surveyed the lantern-lit men and women with his reddened eyes, waiting patiently for their attention. Soldiers quietened further at the sight of him, this famous League Delegate of the Free Ports. Near the far end of the space, Rōshun emerged from behind the tattered silk sheets that formed their sleeping area to gather themselves quietly, sombrely, as though they had been expecting this late-night address from Zeziké.
At last only the soft murmurs of the civilians could be heard from the back of the inkworks. People crowded between racks of clay urns, trying their best to rest with the building shuddering at every nearby explosion, with the gale of violence so close by.
Something’s up, thought the ex-Diplomat Ché, from where he sat on top of a barrel with his back to the wall, in his manacles, in his exile, watching them all from afar. He was dressed in some clothes at last, dead man’s clothes no doubt, too big for his small frame, and he was busy picking the lock of one of his manacles, using the pin of a brooch he’d stolen from a sleeping civilian. But as Coya Zeziké stepped past he caught the spirited gleam in the man’s eye, something of hope and sudden chances, and Ché sat up straighter, his shackles clinking.
A few heads turned in Ché’s direction; a few hostile stares from the rangers he’d been watching surreptitiously for a sight of Curl amongst them. He glimpsed the girl now, chomping through a loaf of bread in hunger, though she feigned not to glance back at him.
‘Thank you, Sergeant Sansun,’ announced Coya in a voice that projected strong and clear across the crowded space, dispelling the echoes of war. ‘You all look as tired as I feel, but allow me a few moments of your time. I’m afraid the Stadium of Arms has definitely fallen. Our barricades are barely holding back the enemy forces who now occupy much of the city. Thankfully, many of the citizenry we
re able to evacuate the northern districts as they fell. They’re crowded around the harbour districts, waiting for passage out on whatever ships can take them. Which means the longer we hold out here, the more people can make their escape.’
‘And what about us?’ shouted a Volunteer. ‘Are we expected to die here in Khos, or are we getting out too?’
Voices rose loudly at that, and Coya held up his hand to try and settle them.
‘A dozen volunteers!’ Coya shouted over them all, and his voice rang through the space like struck steel. ‘That’s how many I need to save this city. To save Khos!’
Silence. Looks of disbelief.
Ché sighed as the manacle on his wrist snapped open, and he slipped it off and rubbed at the chafed skin for a moment, taking in the scene. In moments he had unlocked the other one, and he hopped off the barrel onto his feet, feeling light and free without his iron burdens. Beside him, his guard was wholly intent upon the gathering.
‘I can’t disclose the details to you right now,’ Coya was telling them all. ‘But we might stall this war in its tracks, if only we can make contact with the Alhazii Caliphate. Yet our one hope of doing so lies with the Dreamer, Shard. And right now she needs some help.’
‘What kind of help,’ asked a veteran ranger with obvious suspicion, plucking a pipe from his mouth.
‘Some people I know. The Dreamer has ascertained that they’re trapped behind enemy lines, holed up in a taverna called the Broken Wheel. We believe a person rather crucial to our efforts is with them.’
‘So you need us to go and get this person.’
‘Yes. With her aid, our Dreamer might be able to get a message through to the Caliphate, and end this war. The Rōshun here have already agreed to help in this venture. Now we need a dozen riflemen to provide cover. Are you interested?’
‘You didn’t answer me, Coya Zeziké,’ shouted the Volunteer. ‘When do we get to leave this bloody city?’
Coya stirred above his cane unhappily. ‘We leave when our work is done here, not before. Sergeant, if you please.’
The ranger sergeant nodded, and started dragging his heel across the floor, drawing a line in the dust.
‘A dozen volunteers,’ he hollered. ‘Step over the line if you’re willing.’
‘You’re going, Sergeant?’ called out one of his companions, and when Sansun nodded, his squad of rangers stepped forward one by one to join him on the other side of the line.
Ché straightened, spotting Curl amongst them, the girl hesitating before she crossed the line. The sight of her drew him forward, pushing his way through the crowd on an impulse he barely comprehended.
Every head turned to him in stunned surprise.
‘You want to know if I can be trusted or not,’ Ché said to Coya. ‘Well, this is your chance. I can help you here, especially if you’re going behind their lines.’
‘He’ll run for it the first chance he gets,’ said someone from behind.
But Coya held up his hand to silence them. For a long searching moment he gazed into Ché’s eyes, reading what he could like a diviner of men’s intentions, until at last something prompted him to decision. ‘You already gave me your word you would not try to escape. But if you do run, one of these rangers will shoot you through. You understand, Diplomat?’
Ché nodded.
‘Good. Then get ready to leave, all of you. A skud will be arriving soon to pick us up. And thank you. Tonight we show these Mannians that we’re not finished yet. Where there’s a will, there’s always a damned way.’
CHAPTER FORTY
Diplomat
First chance I get I should make a break for it, Ché was thinking to himself on the deck of the skud, thrilled that the choice was there for the taking at last.
His shackles were gone. He even had a sword hanging from his belt. Slipping away in the darkness of night should be the easiest thing of all, and then he could leave this city and the war behind for good, and set out on his own course.
Ché resisted a rare urge to smile as the skud lifted off into the starry Khosian night, its thrusters burning like tiny twin suns too bright to look at, fighting to free the weight of so many people from the colossal pull of the world. Upwards the gas loft surged, lifting the rest of the skyboat with it, swaying sluggishly as they climbed away from the darkened inkworks below.
In a lather the boat’s captain, a small rotund woman armed with a tongue like a living lash, tramped along the small and crowded deck scolding the passengers to move fore or aft, spreading out their weight more evenly. Once satisfied they’d achieved some measure of trim, the captain called back to the pilot at the wheel. Suddenly the skud swung fast towards the north-west, spars creaking and twisting, silk loft ripping above their heads. Figures leaned into the turn and grasped the rails for balance; six Rōshun crouched along the sides in their dark robes; a dozen rangers to fore and aft.
All were silent as they peered ahead at the darkened districts, lit here and there by flaring fires. An inferno was blazing high above the heart of the city where the Stadium of Arms was engulfed by flames. Around it raced skyships locked in battle, tearing through a night sky that flashed with sheets of lightning cast from the Mannian War Wicks out on the plain.
Closer still, explosions were walking a track through the southern districts, following a line that was likely the barricades of the Khosian defenders, the only thing now holding back the imperial forces. Across it all zipped a webbing of rifle fire, shots tracing courses through the night like ghostly green meteors, as silent as everything else against the roar of the thrusters as the skud sped towards the north-west.
It was bitterly cold on the open deck. The wind whipped and probed at his body, leaching any heat it could find. Ché blew into his hands, whitened to the bone.
Idly he scratched at the healing wound on his neck, and found himself gazing up at a night sky he hadn’t seen properly in countless weeks, at the running river of stars that was the Great Wheel, that brilliant blaze of distant suns glowing like lanterns within flecks of luminous colour. Powerful emotions stirred within him.
In one single outflow of breath, Ché expelled all the tensions from his body; a whole lifetime of burdens he hadn’t even known he had been carrying, released upon the wind.
He was free of the Empire and the Mannian order. Free of the life he had been born into, the life of an imperial assassin. All he had to do now was wait until a chance presented itself, and he could be free of these Mercians too.
Yet at the thought of fleeing into the night, Ché glanced along the deck towards the young medico, Curl, where she sat with a few of the rangers. Even though he barely knew her, he cared for this troubled Lagosian girl. He couldn’t explain these disproportionate feelings he held for her. Yet if he thought of harm falling upon Curl, his stomach tightened into knots.
In the flashes of light across the sky he saw her watching him for a moment, before the silhouette of her head turned to observe the city ahead.
Smoke billowed up into the skud’s path, biting at their throats and eyes. Low and fast they sped over the Khosian’s defensive lines, where imperial ground forces clashed all along a winding barricade. Gunfire raged just below for a moment, and the cries and screams of battle. A few bullets clattered off the skyboat’s hull.
And then they were racing onwards, into the occupied parts of the city, the boat turning ever westwards over streets filled with rushing enemy troops, until the captain called out a hushed command.
‘Stop thrusters!’
Suddenly the skyboat was drifting along in creaky silence, ruffled by a wind that filled the side-skuls and bore it along. The sounds of battle fell behind. Everyone on the deck quietened. They were passing into the deserted western districts of the city now, areas of warehouses and industry.
Ché cleared his throat as an acrid stench caught at the back of it. Others were doing the same.
‘It’s the Flats,’ someone explained. ‘All the stinking tar pits in the area.’
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‘Hush now,’ hissed the captain.
On the wind the skyboat passed over imperial forces in the streets below, looting what they could from the unlit buildings, piling anything valuable onto the backs of wagons. No one spoke as the skud drifted on over vast pens of braying cattle, around which more troops were stationed, visible next to bonfires in the streets. Their laughter rose up to them in the wind.
The moons were not yet risen, the boat seemingly invisible in the night sky. Soon they were past the imperial positions and sweeping out over open tar pits where all was dark, the bitter stench so thick they could taste it in their mouths.
Just then he heard the cripple Coya murmuring something to the captain. Slowly the skud turned to a different heading with soft blasts of one of its thrusters. Coya wore a pair of Owls so he could see through the darkness. He murmured again to the captain for another adjustment in course.
Ché strained to see through the darkness too, and saw that they were approaching the largest building in sight, a tall structure wrapped in gloom like the dwellings around it.
‘That’s it,’ said Coya. ‘The Broken Wheel.’
‘Looks deserted,’ ventured one of the rangers at the front, the young lad Xeno with This Boy Kills tattooed on his skull, peering through the scope of his longrifle.
‘No, they’re there, all right,’ said Coya.
‘How can you be so sure?’ asked another.
‘One of the Rōshun managed to get through with a message. He told them to stay tight, until we could come and get them.’
Lookouts strained through their Owls, searching for a sign of the enemy in the gloomy district around them. The thrusters stopped panting away as the skud drifted right towards the building. In a hush a few crew members lowered a land anchor from its winch. They heaved and strained until the anchor snagged on the eaves of the wooden roof below, threatening to tear up the boards as the vessel came to a halt in the breeze, squirming like a fish on a hook. Sweating now, the crewmen began to winch the boat downwards, but the gears squealed as they were turned, setting everyone’s teeth on edge.
