She'd even entered her darling Aerokin one last time to find what was left of her healing gel, slapping a palmful of the stuff over his jaw, and storing the rest in a container at her belt. It must have been doing something, because it burnt, and though David had already suffered so much this was almost the worst of it. If Kara hadn't needed him so, he would have just sat down in the snow and died. If he hadn't needed her, he was sure she would have done the same.
Kara virtually carried him to the stony wall, a section just like any other, and quite close to the part that he and Margaret had clambered down. She ran a hand along the wall, and hit it hard with the meat of her palm. The stone rang out like a bell, and she stepped back, holding David upright as the sound died.
“Hollow,” she said. “So, we stand here, and…”
The stone parted, as though it were nothing more than a curtain, opening onto a tunnel and admitting a howling terrible wind that cut through their clothes, gnawed at their flesh, and nearly bowled them over. David shivered beside her like an old man.
“Another bloody tunnel,” Kara shouted into his ear.
“Yes, another one.”
They stood there a few moments, bent over against the gale as it did its best to knock them to the ground. But, unsteady as they were, they did not let it. “We better keep moving,” David said at last.
The journey through was dire. The wind only got louder and colder and stronger. It blasted against them until Kara thought she was going to die, frozen to death, hollowed out. Her bones felt frozen. Her eyes kept sticking closed. Only David was warm, she pulled him forward, kept him moving.
At the mouth of the cave, they looked out into the snow — it was already growing dark, and growing even colder.
“So this is what victory looks like,” David said, teeth already starting to chatter. Just hours ago he would have laughed off the cold, he would have created it. But he wasn't that David any more.
“We aren't going to last long out there,” Kara said, sounding like she didn’t care.
“We won't have to,” David said, and pointed.
The Collard Green cruised over the ice, low and fast. And Kara had never been happier to see a dirigible. Her great lights traced the wall of the metropolis. And then those lights shone upon them, blinding in their brightness.
Kara yelled at the top of her lungs. David did too. And the lights stopped, stayed fixed on them.
“Now,” Kara said, “we're going to need to get away from the wall, or she'll smash against it.”
She lowered him to the ground, the lights following them, and he sank in the snow to his knees. Kara dropped beside him, hands reaching under his arms. The snow actually felt warmer than the air.
“Keep moving,” she said, and she couldn't tell whether she was talking to him, or herself. So he did, one painful step after another. A hundred yards from the wall, Kara stopped. “This is good enough.”
The ship made her way towards them, dragging what looked like several anchors, her engines working loud and hard against the storm, the gondola passed over their heads, her lights washed over them.
Buchan looked down and he chortled.
“We found you. With nothing but two moons in a snowstorm to guide us, we found you,” he said, or, at least that's what David thought he said. David couldn't hear much of it. “Can you climb?”
David nodded his head.
“We can climb,” Kara shouted. “Or I can climb for the both of us.”
Rope ladders dropped to the ground, and slowly they made their way up them. At the top, Buchan hugged them both, pulling them inside, slamming the door behind them.
“Your face,” Buchan said. “What happened to your face?” He was already reaching for bandages, pushing them into place over the wound.
“It’s all right,” David said. “It hardly hurts at all. How did you find us?”
“A voice — the Engine, I guess — told us that it was safe to leave the overhang, and that we would find you here.” The gondola creaked, the airship jolted, headed alarmingly close to the great spikes of the wall. Buchan gave a frightened-looking grin. “Well, it was right about one thing.”
Already the Collard Green was turning, her engines roaring. We're not out of this yet, David thought.
Buchan looked at Kara. “The Dawn?”
Kara walked away, and Buchan left it at that.
David left Kara to herself.
“And what of Margaret?” David asked.
“I think you had better worry about your own health,” Buchan patted his back. “An iron ship passed back over the wall a few minutes after Kara left. It… passed the Dawn and raced south. I'm guessing that she was on it.
“But that doesn't mean that we can't get her back. After all, we've won, haven't we?” Buchan looked out into the maelstrom. “Cadell was right. I did not even begin to comprehend how awful this would be, the sort of destruction it would cause.”
David nodded his head, knowing too much, his own body numb with horror at the dreadful thing he had done.
“Not everything is destroyed,” David said. “There will be pockets, around the Lodes, or in valleys perhaps, that the Engine did not drown in cold.”
Buchan grimaced. “Really, would you want to be alive in this?”
“We are,” David said. A sudden Carnival pang slithered spiky and cold through him, he bent over with the pain.
Buchan grimaced. “Are you all right?”
“Just the Carnival.”
Kara came back to David, holding a shoe. “You might need this,” she said, gently. “I took it from her, from the Dawn.”
He looked at it hungrily. Not everything was different about him. He lifted it from her hands, and gently slid back the heel. All of the Carnival was there. Saliva built in his mouth, here was an end to pain. He pulled the paper containing the drug free from its hidey-hole, then walked to the gondola's door, opened it a moment, and threw the drug out. It fell away into the dark.
Kara was watching him.
“If I live through this. If we live through this, then I am going to need a clear head.” He winced again, another burst of pain.
Kara reached out to him, and David gently pushed her away.
“Things are going to get much worse, and quickly,” he said, quietly.
No one tried to tell him otherwise.
CHAPTER 53
And the Engine turned and the snow and the ice came, and we all fell down. Those were dark days. But there was some that got back up again. There always are. Praise the mad bastards, or none of you would be here looking out at the unfamiliar constellations.
Pieces of a Fragmented War, Landymore
THE FAR NORTH
The iron ship had landed on its roof. Margaret's ears rang, the wound in her stomach burned. She crawled around the ship, looking for a way out.
She wasn't the only survivor. Anderson lay by the door, hands clenching and releasing. His breath rattled in his chest. He looked at her, tried to speak, but couldn't: all that came was a wet-sounding cough.
Margaret slid over to him, across buckled metal, and held his hand. He squeezed hers back; she could feel his life leaving him. But she knew that she didn't have long for this world, either. She felt a sharp sliver of bitterness. Who'd hold her hand?
The ship shuddered, there was a muffled bang, either rocks falling on the craft, or an engine exploding. The iron ship lifted a few feet, and fell, windows shattering, and was still. Explosion, she guessed. Snow melted and trickled through the broken glass. She could smell gasoline: the ship might go up any minute. A quick death, what was wrong with a quick death? They'd won, hadn't they?
Anderson sighed, eyes still trained on her. A look that Margaret recognised, a brief stare, wavering but so strong.
“Mother-”
Anderson squeezed her hand again; hard enough that it almost hurt.
And that was it.
His eyes did not close, but dulled. His fingers no longer gripped hers back. Gently,
ever so gently, she laid his arm across his chest. “You can rest now,” she said.
Margaret stared through one of the cracked windows at the falling snow. There were mountains out there and caves. She circled the ship again, and found a cabinet filled with blankets. She wondered if they had been brought for her. There were also several sheets in there. These she pulled out, ripped into long strips, and tied around her wound — not that it would do much. She knew she was dying. She grabbed a pair of blankets, wrapped them around her shoulders and walked to the doorway. She turned the handle, and put her weight against it.
The door swung open and she fell out onto the ice and snow. The contact was hard enough and painful enough that she blacked out briefly. But, cruelly, that wasn't the end. Her eyes flicked open, she gasped with the pain. The cold began to numb her, a small mercy, that. What was she thinking? Where could she possibly escape to?
She considered crawling back into the ship. But it contained enough death already. She couldn't bear to add to it, and already the ship was cooling, she would freeze just as easily within it as without.
And she would bleed to death before that.
Her teeth began to chatter. She was going to die in a few minutes at best. There were worst things than death, she had seen them, but that didn't mean she wanted an ending now.
Then she saw the gasoline dripping down the side of the craft. It took her several attempts to free a lighter from her belt, another couple of fumbles to actually light it. She threw it at the ship and the gasoline caught in a sudden rush of flame.
She'd half expected it to explode, but she was spared that for now: just fire and warmth.
She hunkered down, blankets around her shoulders, and watched the iron ship burn.
The winds had died down a little, though dark clouds building on the horizon suggesting they would be back soon. David looked down from the gondola and pointed towards the smoke.
“See,” he said. “I told you. She's down there.”
The ship jutted out of the snow, steam and smoke gusting into the air. The Collard Green approached slowly, dropping anchors when they were within a few hundred yards.
“Perhaps you should let us look,” Buchan said.
“And spare me what?” David asked, and there was the ghost of Cadell's irritability there. “I've seen too much already to be spared anything.”
He clambered down the ropes, falling the last few steps to the snow. But he was back up on his feet at once and wading through snow towards the iron ship.
And yet, when the time came, David hung back, and it was Buchan, face masked, that looked through the open doorway.
“There's dead here,” he said. “But she's not among them. Though I did find this.” He lifted up one of Margaret's rime blades.
“Maybe she's back in the city,” Kara said.
“No,” David said, “if she was I would have known. She's here, and nearby.”
It was Buchan that found her, half buried in the snow. “Too late,” he said. “We were too late.” Kara and David ran to her side.
Margaret opened her eyes, just once. She might have even smiled.
“Get her into the Collard Green,” Kara said. “Get her inside now.”
They lifted her into the airship, careful as they could in the rising winds, and warmed her. She woke as Buchan looked her over, declaring that he knew a little of doctoring; he stopped the moment he came to the bullet wound, frowned and slid the sheets and blanket back up to her neck.
“You were lucky you didn't lose your fingers to the cold.” Buchan smiled, though he couldn't conceal the worry in his eyes. “So are we friends now?”
Margaret smiled thinly. “I think you can say that, you bastard.” Buchan laughed.
Margaret reached up and brushed his hand.
David looked down at her. Her lips were bloodless, eyes strained as though she were sick.
“You're alive!” Margaret said. “But what have they done to you?”
“Nothing,” David said. “Nothing. I did that to myself.”
“What do we do now?” Margaret asked.
David sat down on the bunk next to her and told her and Kara what he thought had to be done. Buchan listened at a distance, but the man was subdued; he’d hardly spoken since he’d looked over Margaret.
“So,” Margaret said. “If that is what you think is right, and I agree with you. Then we must go to the Underground. But if you could please hurry, Buchan’s skills at doctoring don’t extend this far, I think.” And then she showed them the extent of her wounds, and David realised that he could smell her death. There was still enough of Cadell within him to recognise it for what it was.
Shelaid her head down on the pillow and smiled. “Don't worry, I think I am ready to die.”
“No,” David said. “No, you are not.”
“There's enough of the gel to keep her together,” Kara said. She looked over at David. “But not enough for the both of you.”
“I'm all right,” David said. “I'm all right. Buchan, we need to go, and now. She's dying.”
He said, “David, I give you my word, I will get her there in time. I may have not been able to get you out of Hardacre, but I can get you out of this. I know the way to the Underground.”
And so does Watson, David thought.
Buchan said, “And it's where we are heading, as far as I know it is the only place where there might be food and supplies, and doctors. We've maps and charts, and the instruments on this ship are more than up to the task — and though the landmarks are for the most part gone, the mountains are hard to miss.”
“So is that storm,” Kara Jade said, nodding towards the dark snow-filled clouds rushing towards them. “If we stay here, we're dead. If we fly into that…”
“Optimism is a virtue in such instances, Miss Jade. I would suggest we hold to our course and think only of what lies beyond the storm.”
Part Five
The Underground
CHAPTER 54
Monteroy Bleaktongue breathed raggedly. Though his wounds were not fatal, he had been worn down by them. His bones seemed anxious to break the surface of his flesh. He'd become a creature of angles and pained breaths — a caricature of geometry. “Mr Grave, don't you see? You have failed. We have failed. Everything is undone.”
Travis the Grave shook his head; blood stained his teeth, and bubbled in time with his breaths, and he knew he had too few of those left now.
“Monteroy, you’re wrong as usual. Endings, they are just beginnings. And until the great engines of the universe run down, it will always be so. And who's to say what will happen after that greatest ending of all? No, Monteroy, there are no endings. Not even the cage of our flesh can make it so.”
Shadow Council 24: Endings, Dickson Mcunne
THE UNDERGROUND
It had been Grappel's idea to set up the floodlights in the snow: sweating beacons aimed into the sky.
“We've no reason to hide now,” he'd said to Medicine from his cot in the infirmary. “Let those who remain find us. The more bodies we have the better.”
It was sometimes hard to believe that the world had suddenly changed so much. Here in the Underground it was still all business, all struggle, but it had been that way for years. Though the urgency was gone from it, and the fear. The Engine had turned, the worst had come, and they were still alive.
Beyond the great iron gates the old world was gone. Sometimes, in the day-to-day business of the Underground it was a struggle to remember that. Thousands upon thousands had died, but it was still all so abstract. And when Medicine tried to bring it in, frame it with faces and friendships he had had, it became too painful. David was gone, and Agatha. There’d been no word from Hardacre, so they had to assume the worse there.
Better to focus on what lay ahead, on the many tasks that had to find resolution, so that many thousands more wouldn't die as well. But sometimes he took himself out to the lights. To remember and honour what had happened. Most nights there was
a crowd at the outer wall, standing, craning their heads to watch the coruscating tubes, and wait to see just what might come out of the darkness.
Because, nearly every day, since the lights had been activated, things came.
Medicine lifted his head towards the dim sputtering and the sharp fingers of light caressing the horizon. An airship. The third that day. And this ship he recognised.
“It's them,” he said. “It's the Collard Green.” And he knew that they would be on it.
The Collard Green landed, in an ice field aswarm with airships at mooring masts. Medicine did not know how long the ships could last without hangars, and there was no way that they could broaden the cavern mouth to the Underground- facilitating flight had never been part of the idea behind it. They were doing their best to construct covers, but the weather was horrible, even now, some days after the Engine's activation. Though the mooring masts were made of reinforced steel, one of the ships had already been taken away by the wind.
He knew he would have to negotiate with Drift — word had just reached them that there were survivors in that city, too — or they might as well let the ships rot. One thing he did know with absolute certainty was these airships would be the last of their generation. There simply wasn't enough cow gut to make the gold-beater's skin. There'd soon enough be pilots and airfolk with no ships to work.
Medicine thought of all that pent-up energy, all those pilots's egos. Yet another administrative nightmare to add to the menagerie.
But before then, once the worst of the storms had passed, the ships would be sent out. To Mirrlees and Hardacre to Eltham, and all the other townships, searching for survivors or at the very least, bearing witness to what had happened.
David clambered out of the airship, shivering as the cold air struck him; his face stung. Twice the wound had grown so horribly infected that Whig had had to drain the pus from it with a syringe. Kara had held his hand through that ordeal.
The flight had been awful; several times he'd thought they were going to die, despite Watson’s assurances that he could survive anything. Indeed, the look of horror on Watson's face (and echoed in Kara's) was enough to make such assurances null and void. What's more, the ship had constantly required clearing of ice, around the clock, done in shifts that even David had been unable to avoid.
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