The 7th of Victorica

by Beau Schemery

  Silas gasped as the armored rider fell from the giant clockwork horse. The horse didn’t stop. It barreled directly at Silas, and he dove to avoid its enormous rushing hooves. He watched as the giant automaton trampled a swathe through Silas’s allies. He stood unsteadily.

  Something hit him from behind, forcing him to his knees. He stumbled, tried to get back up. He found himself surrounded and the armored rider had his enormous mechanical gauntlet pressed to Silas’s chest. He pounded at the giant hand with his own mechanical fist—to no avail. Silas could feel the air leaving his lungs, a rib snapping. He didn’t recognize the maniacally laughing man within the mechanical suit. As the villain raised his electrically charged sword, Rat came roaring out of nowhere, a blade in each hand. He sliced the back of the armored monster’s legs, and it dropped to the ground. Rat stepped up onto its back and plunged his blade into the suit’s power cell. Lightning erupted, and the monstrosity collapsed. Rat launched himself at one of the surrounding zombies, slicing off its head before he continued to climb, using the now headless shoulders as another launch point. He continued, jumping, slicing, and stabbing. One by one the creatures surrounding Silas fell around their leader.

  “Thanks, Ratty.”

  “Don’t mention it, Benty.” Rat did not pause for a moment, running toward his next battle. Silas winced when a bullet ricocheted off one of Rat’s blades, but the young urchin barely registered his brush with death. Silas shook his head and pushed forward. He tried to search for Teddy, Tab, and their other allies as he did. All over he saw too many of their reanimated enemies swarming in greater numbers. No matter how hard his friends fought, more and more of the clockwork corpses rose to meet their fight. Damn, Silas cursed.

  No sooner had the first wave fallen than another contingent replaced them. Silas’s allies fought and fired vigorously. The monsters barely made a noise when they fell, but Silas’s friends, oh, did they scream. Silas quickly expended his ammunition. His enemies refused to spare him a moment, pushing forward. He fought, punching, kicking. He managed to load one of his pistols and quickly emptied it once again.

  Silas heard a strangled cry from Rat, and he turned too late. Rat’s flying body slammed into him, sending both tumbling end over end. He sat up slowly, dizzy and disoriented, and checked Rat, who seemed to only be unconscious. Silas shook his spinning head as he stood, only to be forced back to his knees. He squinted to block out the loud battle and refocus himself. He knelt, head down, dragging deep, steadying breaths into his lungs.

  A powerful hand grabbed his neck just after a deep inhale. The hand around his throat was mostly metal. Silas clawed at the mechanical fingers, choking, spluttering. The first blossoms of unconsciousness obscured his vision, but he managed to spare a glance to the sky, hoping Sev was having better luck than himself.

  SEV TOOK a breath. He’d been in tighter spots than this but not many. “All right, mate. Let’s just stay calm.” He let go of the woman, and she collapsed before she crawled to the corner of the cabin.

  “Oh, ya can bet I’m calm, Irish. I’m as calm as a summer Sunday afternoon.” The hammer on the man’s gun clicked once.

  Sev winced. He had to move. Now or never. He dropped, spinning, swiped the man’s legs from underneath him as he shoved the man’s gun, causing it to discharge. The Southern officer fell backward, and Sev was on him. He pinned the man’s gun hand, then punched him devastatingly in the jaw. Sev pulled the gun from the man’s limp grasp and stood. His gaze traveled over the cabin.

  The black priestess lay in a pool of blood, choking, gasping. The officer’s stray bullet had caught her in the throat. Sev ran to her but could tell there was nothing for it but to hold her, offer her comfort until she expired. Mercifully it didn’t take long. He spared a silent moment for her before hoisting himself out a window and making for the next airship.

  He paused, feeling the hot wind whipping against his face, and he realized the task that lay before him. His friends were being overrun, and he wasn’t sure he could make it through the rest of the airships before the South decimated their forces. He needed to work smarter, not harder. He closed his eyes, and arcane words swam behind his lids. Spells for fire. Too dangerous, he thought. Each spell he remembered he dismissed as not useful or not worth the risk. Then a recently discovered spell slithered into his mind. Paralysis. The way the spell read gave no indication if it should be used on a single opponent, but it had worked once, not perfectly, but it had worked. He wondered if he could use it to paralyze all the airship crews at once? Would he need to alter it? Could he alter it? Or was it intent? Could a sorcerer will a spell to effect more than one person at a time? Would it affect Gert and Felix?

  “Just give it a try, Sevvy.” The familiar voice made Sev’s flesh crawl. “Just imagine them all falling down at once. It’s in you, Sevvy. Can’t you feel it eating away at the back of your mind? Stretch it, Sevvy. Use it.”

  “Shut it,” Sev growled. Bloody Fairgate. But Sev knew he was right, and even though he wanted to rebel against that voice in his head on pure principle, he had to try it for his friends on the ground. So he did as the voice instructed. He took one last look at all the airships with crews and priestesses that still needed stopping, and then he closed his eyes. Picturing the cabins in his head, trying to guess at how many crew remained on each, he focused. In his mind the imagined men milled about checking instruments while the drugged priestesses waited patiently, weaving spells for them. He willed the incantation to exclude Gert and Felix. Something happened then. A web of magic permeated each ship as before, filtering down to the troops below, and each priestess glowed dimly while the soldiers looked like shadowy holes moving through the miasma of mystical energy. Sev didn’t know why, but he reached out to his sides as if to embrace the fleet. He spread his fingers as wide as he could like the branches of a tree reaching to shade the battlefield. Then he spoke the words that swam, green and sickly, through his thoughts. “Bellestrum envictus prescepus allurum petricus.”

  He felt the spell like a wave, like an ever-growing ripple in the sea of reality, spread out from him. He didn’t open his eyes but still saw it wash over his enemies and their prisoners, watched with his mind as they froze instantly where they stood or sat. The ones who had been pacing or moving and were caught midstride fell, suddenly unbalanced.

  Then he felt something else, something black and ominous, and it did feel like it was eating at the back of his mind or at least caressing his consciousness with fetid tentacles. His eyes snapped open with a sudden irrational urge to run and throw himself from the airship. He didn’t. He just heaved in a great gulp of air, realizing that he hadn’t been breathing since he uttered that arcane language.

  He felt dizzy and unusual. He stepped over to the window once more and was relieved and alarmed at what he saw. Two of the airships dove inexorably toward the ground while the others bobbed languidly in the air. This confirmed the spell had worked, but he hadn’t expected it to cause devastation. The Southern forces had been stripped to less than half with the loss of their zombie allies. His spell must have interrupted the priestesses. Good, he thought. The dizziness overtook him, and his body suddenly felt drained, empty, depleted. He collapsed onto the floor of the airship cabin, and when the first of the descending airships hit the ground and burst into a fireball, he did not wake.

  37

  THE BLACKNESS tried to swallow Silas as he gazed desperately at the fat, bloated airships hanging in the sky above. He felt hope slipping away just as his consciousness threatened to do. Then he thought he saw a ripple spread out from one of the airships, but he couldn’t be certain it wasn’t just lack of oxygen.

  That strange effect washed over the other airships, and the monster’s grip at his throat slackened. Silas heaved a great breath, his ragged, injured throat protesting with a coughing fit. His attacker listed to the side, collapsing as he coughed. Silas studied the battlefield where all around him, the zombies were dropping to the ground. Silas didn’t know how Se
v had managed it, but he suspected magic based on that strange wave in the sky. It didn’t matter now. He mastered himself and cleared his throat. They were still slightly outnumbered, but their chances of winning this battle had greatly improved.

  Silas stood, ready to meet his foes. He tried to utter a rallying call, but his injured throat protested, and all he could manage was a ragged cough. As he tried to regain his composure and press on, something vibrated in the ground beneath his feet, a rumbling. Then sounded a rallying cry that was not his own. He looked toward the noise, and a smile broke across his lips. Grant crested a hill leading an enormous force on horseback and on foot. The newly arrived army, for that is indeed what it was, charged to aid Silas and his foundering troops.

  The injection of new allies encouraged Silas and his comrades to redouble their efforts against the Southern forces now diminished by the loss of their undead compatriots. Still the Southerners fought with everything they had, but it became all too apparent they were overwhelmed.

  Silas watched Ratty and Tab fight back-to-back surrounded but holding their own. Midnight galloped through the field on a black steed, slashing out with his signature lightning speed, felling enemy after enemy without mercy. Silas gasped as the man leapt from the horse and single-handedly eliminated an entire cannon regiment.

  As successful as these were, some of their numbers were cut down in brilliant sprays of blood and gunfire. A man who looked suspiciously like Lincoln rode with Midnight’s band of highwaymen. The tall, lanky figure fired a revolving pistol with one hand and swung an ax with the other, cutting down their opponents with precision and determination. Silas knew he needed to find the generals and end the battle once and for all. He scanned the battlefield, looking for the officers. He expected to see Lee astride a large white warhorse, commanding his troops, but he saw no one who even looked the part.

  He turned his gaze to the sky and had his answer. One of the airships stood out, much more ornate than the others. The command vessel, Silas thought. He regarded the other airships mostly adrift in the sky above the battlefield. “We need to get them down here,” he muttered. He looked around, spotting the Atlas unit at the edge of the battle, batting soldiers this way and that. “Atlas!” Silas shouted. He ran toward it, shouting.

  Finally the clockwork turned, and Silas motioned for the pilot to join him. The mechanical man took another swipe at his attackers, clearing them away easily, then stomped over to Silas. “What d’you need, boss?” the amplified voice of the pilot asked. He didn’t sound British.

  “I need these ships out of the sky. Especially that one.” He pointed to the command ship.

  “You got it, boss.” The clockwork tipped Silas a lazy salute as Teddy joined them.

  “What’s goin’ on, Si?” he asked.

  “We need to land these ships. Can you gather a few boys to pilot them?”

  “I surely can.” Teddy nodded and ran off to a group who had a number of Southern soldiers tied up between them.

  While Teddy rounded up pilots, Atlas jumped and grabbed one of the command ships mooring lines. The ship jerked toward the ground when the giant clockwork landed.

  “I’ll get this one, Si,” Teddy volunteered as he returned with the other pilots. He scrambled up Atlas’s leg, climbing until he could reach the cabin door while Silas explained the plan to the others.

  Moments later the remaining airships landed one by one in and around the field where the battle had raged. Silas watched one ship intently: the ship the odd wave had spread from, because he assumed that vessel would have Sev on it. He worried that Sev hadn’t just landed the ship himself and that he’d been injured or worse, making it impossible for him to pilot the dirigible.

  The first airship landed, and the door to the cabin opened. A few of Grant’s men ran over to secure any prisoners, but the only person to disembark was Teddy. He jogged over to Silas. “They is all asleep,” he said, stopping in front of Silas.

  “Asleep?” Silas asked.

  Teddy nodded. “Funniest thing I ever seen.”

  Silas shook his head. “No. Magic. Sev did this.”

  They were joined by Grant, Midnight, and the man, who Silas now realized was Lincoln. He and Grant were arguing. “I can’t believe you did this, Abe.”

  “Calm down, Uly. Everything worked out in the end, as it has a tendency to do. Well done, Mr. Kettlebent. It appears you and your ragamuffin army had things well in hand even before we arrived.” Lincoln shook Silas’s hand.

  “That’s our Benty,” Midnight chimed in. “The miracle worker with the midget army. Hephaestus would be proud.”

  Silas glared at the villain for a moment.

  “I think he would be too,” Sev said, drawing the attention of those gathered. He leaned on the doorframe of the cabin before he limped toward them.

  “Sev!” Teddy ran over to lend his shoulder. Sev accepted and joined Silas and the rest just as Rat and Tab arrived.

  “All right, Sev?” Rat puffed his pipe vigorously.

  “Twisted me ankle, nothin’ more,” he responded. He glanced over as the first of the recovering Southerners disembarked the airships in various states of restraint.

  “That’s a relief, son. I’m told we have you to thank for eliminating the regiments of the clockwork corpses,” Grant stated, bit off the end of a cigar, and lit the other.

  “You!” A voice roared from off to the left of the group. Silas turned to see the man who had been in the large suit of armor.

  “Sutherlin,” Grant growled, regarding the man.

  He was bound but angry. The older man drove his elbow into the friendly soldier who’d been leading him and grabbed the man’s pistol with bound hands. He leveled the barrel at Sev and time seemed to slow. The bullet fired with a blast of smoke, kicking Sutherlin back. Lincoln moved before anyone else, even Midnight, pushing Sev out of the bullet’s path and putting himself in direct peril. Before Silas could even lift his hand and at almost the same time as Lincoln moved, Teddy leapt into the bullet’s trajectory.

  Sev screamed, “No!” as a spray of blood erupted around the bullet slamming into Teddy’s chest. Silas started screaming and ran to catch his young friend’s limp form. He could hear commotion and Tab’s high-pitched wail as she watched her brother die.

  BILE ROSE in Sev’s throat as he watched the blood spray from Teddy’s wound as the bullet from Sutherlin’s stolen pistol buried itself in his friend’s chest. He tried to lift his arms, to do anything to stop the scene unfolding before him, but his limbs wouldn’t follow his mind’s instruction. People screamed. Two soldiers grabbed Sutherlin and wrestled him to the ground. Silas caught Teddy, and they both landed in the dirt very near to Sev’s feet. Lincoln strode angrily over to Sutherlin and kicked the gun from his hands. The sickening crack of the man’s fingers breaking cut through the din all around Sev, and it was more than Sev could handle. Tears spilled out of his eyes over his cheeks as he dropped to his knees.

  “We won,” he whispered because it was all the air his lungs could manage. “This can’t be happenin’. We won. We beat ’em. Teddy.” He wept; sobs wracked his entire body. He turned his gaze to the heavens. He wanted to beg, to plead, to bargain for Teddy’s life. Everyone gathered around him now, desperately trying to do anything to save him. Sev couldn’t believe the sun could shine so brightly when his world had become so much darker.

  His mind latched on to one word like one of the London strays latching on to a bit of discarded meat: magic. Magic can fix this, Sev thought. It has to. His mind raced through all the things he had learned since discovering his affinity for understanding Fairgate’s Grimoire. There had to be something he’d seen, something he’d read that would help him now.

  “Come on, Sevvy,” Fairgate’s voice cajoled. “Even I wasn’t so arrogant to think I could bring someone back from the other side.”

  “Feck off, ye blighter.” Sev tried to block out the dead wizard’s chatter. His frantic mind tried to pull forth a memory. It sat just o
ut of his reach on the edge of remembering. Until someone mumbled, “heal him” and suddenly, the memory hit full force.

  “No! Sevvy, love. You don’t want to use that spell on your friend.” Sev thought Fairgate sounded too pleased with himself.

  “Nice try,” Sev mumbled.

  “What?” Silas gripped Sev’s shoulder.

  “Nothin’. I think I figured out how t’help ’im.” He placed his palms over Teddy’s chest and spoke the guttural, moist words instinctively. After a moment he held out his hand, palm up. “Knife,” he barked. Someone placed a small blade in his hand. Sev grabbed it and sunk the tip of the blade in his thumb. Blood welled, and Sev drew strange, twisted symbols on Teddy’s skin.

  Sev raised his hands and bellowed the last words of the spell, “B’urgath shug-ogarrath. Ahk oh’manarth, fur Val’marth Aklaan!” Sev’s eyes grew wide as he understood what he’d just spoken too late. He’d called out to the furthest edges of existence where the old ones slept, except they were beginning to wake. In his mind Sev saw a fiery orange eye staring into him. He felt the blackness rolling off the creature. “God, Sevvy-wevv. Not creature,” Fairgate corrected. “You’ve gone and done it now.”

  “Shut up!” Sev shouted. He didn’t care who heard him or what they thought. He just wanted Fairgate’s ghost to be silent.

  Sev felt it then, something driving toward him, flowing through him and into Teddy. That force, that energy felt cold and vile. Sev shuddered and gagged. He tried to pull back at the last second, tried to keep that foul energy from touching his friend. His gorge rose, and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.

  Silence followed his muffled retch. He could feel the gathered crowd staring, could feel their collective reluctance to breathe. He found himself holding his breath, waiting for the first of them brave enough to be the first to break the silence. No one gathered around the prone, cold form of his friend. They all simply waited, for what Sev feared to guess. Their patience paid off, and Teddy gasped, sucking in air like a drowning victim. His eyelids snapped open, and an eldritch glow seeped out from beneath them. Teddy’s back arched, and his body began to rise bonelessly until the young black boy floated before them.