‘Never mind about him,’ said Malvery. ‘Go help the Cap’n.’ He knelt down and began to examine the fallen pilot.
Harkins backed away awkwardly. His wet trousers were chafing his leg. He looked around for signs of the daemon-Jez-thing, but he couldn’t hear it. All he could hear were distant explosions and gunfire from the frigates fighting in the world outside, somewhere beyond the oppressive poison haze that enshrouded them.
Not knowing what else to do, he went over to the Cap’n. Frey was standing among the scattered remains of Jez’s victims. He was looking over the edge at the wreckage of the bulldozer, dimly illuminated by its own lights.
‘Er,’ said Harkins.
The daemon shrieked from somewhere down below. Rifles fired. Frey raised his head and looked at Harkins. ‘Reckon we’ll leave her to it for a while. Let her burn off some energy.’
Harkins swallowed. ‘Right.’
‘Can someone get Bess over here?’ Malvery called. ‘Pinn’s alright, but he ain’t looking like waking up anytime soon. And I’m buggered if I’m hauling this lard-arse all the way down the quarry.’
Ehri left Griffden in charge of the battle around the slave pen gates. She instructed him to dig in tight, to clear out the surrounding areas of stray Daks, and to keep the guards on the gate pinned down. On no account were they to try and charge it. Griffden, an infantry veteran of the Second Aerium War, didn’t didn amp;rsqneed telling.
That done, Silo, Ehri and Fal slipped away from the gate, retreating to a safe distance from the machine guns. They skirted the open ground, sticking to the paths between the buildings, making their way closer to the gun. Silo led the way, and the others fell in behind him, just like old times. It felt like the natural thing to do.
There were still Daks about, who hadn’t managed to fall back to the gate before the Murthians got there. Some were hiding and trying to wait out the firefight. Others did their best to ambush the attackers when they could. Silo only saw two, who emerged from behind a building. He fired on them, along with Ehri and Fal, but they fled back the way they came. Silo crept up to the corner, listened, and eventually peeped round. The Daks were gone.
Just like Daks, he thought scornfully. Ain’t never been the types to stand and fight.
The buildings ended at the base of the rise where the anti-aircraft gun emplacement was positioned. It was surrounded by a wall of sandbags. Within were five guards. Two of them were operating the gun. The other three were crouched behind the sandbags, watching for attackers.
Silo scanned the area, careful to keep himself hidden.
We cannot get up the slope without being shot, said Fal, at his shoulder.
Ehri was huddled behind him, her rifle held upright like a staff. ~ I could hit them from here.
You may hit one, said Fal. ~ But once they know where we are, they will focus their fire on us. You will not have another chance to aim.
Silo frowned for a moment, then his brow cleared. ~ That is exactly what we must do, he said. ~ Draw their fire. There are only three of them to defend the emplacement.
I don’t understand, said Fal.
You have a pocket watch?
Neither of them did. Silo gave his to Fal. ~ Wait five minutes. Then start shooting. Stay in cover. Kill them if you can.
And you? asked Ehri. There was still suspicion in her voice. She didn’t trust him yet. She probably never would.
While they are looking at you, they will not see me, he said. He tapped the face of the watch. ~ Five minutes.
Then he was moving, heading back among the buildings, circling the rise in the land to get around the other side of the anti-aircraft emplacement. He could see the outer wall of Gagriisk ahead of him. Many of the guards in the watchtowers had abandoned their posts, having moved to different positions that allowed them to fire down on the enemy. Beyond the wall, he could see the Samarlan frigate in the distanin the dce, barely visible in the murk. It was listing heavily in the air, belching smoke and flame from its flank. As he watched, it was hit by another volley from the Delirium Trigger, and began to sink out of the sky. Dracken had demolished her opponent; now there were only the fighters left to mop up.
He was looking up when a Dak ran out from the doorway of a building just in front of him. Neither of them saw or heard the other until a split second before collision, and by then it was too late to react. They went down, tangled together, struggling instinctively even before they’d realised what had happened. The Dak rolled on top of him and punched wildly at his shoulders and head. Silo’s hands found a forearm and used it as leverage to shove the guard off him. There was an instant of scrabbling and thrashing as they fought on the ground, before Silo got the advantage. Still gripping the forearm, he brought it hard up the enemy’s back, making him yell, driving him face-down into the earth. The Dak scrabbled for his weapon with his free hand; the gun lay a metre away. Silo got onto his back and reached an arm round his throat, making a vice of the crook of his elbow. He gritted his teeth, braced himself, and with one quick jerk he broke the guard’s neck.
He rolled off and knelt in the dirt for a moment, panting. Been a while since he’d killed a man with his bare hands. It was a whole different sort of killing than shooting somebody.
No time to stop. Time was ticking. He got back to his feet, picked up his shotgun, and ran again. On his way, he heard a distant sound like a slow avalanche of metal, followed by an explosion that shook the earth and rattled the windglass seals of the buildings around him. Out in the poisoned wasteland, the frigate had crashed.
He stopped when he came up against the outer wall of the compound, and followed it till he came to the bare rise surrounding the anti-aircraft gun. Hidden by the angle of a wall, he watched the guards behind the sandbags. They’d positioned themselves to have a good view all around. He wasn’t exactly on the far side of it from Ehri and Fal – he reckoned a hundred and twenty degrees rather than a hundred and eighty – but it would have to do. The expanse of open ground seemed daunting, now that he came to it, but it was too late to back out now.
He’d lost track of the time. Hadn’t it been five minutes yet? He checked his shotgun was fully loaded. Perhaps he’d been quicker getting here than he thought. Perhaps Ehri and Fal had decided not to go ahead with it. Perhaps Ehri believed he was trying to pull some kind of trick, that his loyalty to the cause of freedom had been forever compromised by living among the foreigners.
Then there was the sharp bark of a rifle, and one of the guards in the emplacement flew back from the sandbags and fell in a heap.
More shots came. The other two guards found their source and returned fire, moving around the sandbags until they were facing away from Silo. The men operating the anti-aircraft gun seemed oblivious, focused on the Equalisers that were chasing the last of the Samarlan fighters through the yellow sky.
Silo broke cover and ran up the rise towards thse toware emplacement. A copper adrenaline tang on his tongue. If they saw him, they would shoot him, and there was nowhere to hide as he sprinted up the slope.
But they didn’t see him. It was as if the world had turned its eyes away and made him invisible. The gunners were attending to their gun; the guards were occupied with Ehri and Fal. Unobserved, he clambered over the sandbags and into the emplacement.
The first they knew of him was when he shot the first of the guards in the back at a distance of a couple of metres. He cocked his lever-action shotgun and blasted the second Dak as he turned in alarm. Hard to miss at that range. Then he went for the men on the gun.
The gunner’s assistant was still fumbling with his sidearm when Silo shot him. He went staggering back against the control assembly and slumped bonelessly to the ground, holding his guts. The gunner himself was still in the control seat. He raised his hands.
((Get out of the seat)) said Silo.
The gunner did as he was told.
((Over there.))
He stepped away from the gun, arms raised high. The barrel of Silo’s shotg
un followed him. But then something in Silo’s expression, or lack of it, must have warned him what was coming, because his eyes filled with horror and his face crumpled.
((No! Please, I have children!))
Silo pulled the trigger and silenced him. He didn’t want to hear about a Dak’s children. They didn’t think children so precious when they were Murthian boys and girls, growing up bent from working in mines or with lost fingers from the cotton mills.
When he was a younger man, revenge had made him feel better. It had dampened the rage inside. Now it didn’t make him feel at all. A dead Dak was only a drop in the ocean. It didn’t change a thing.
Ehri and Fal came climbing over the sandbags and into the emplacement. Fal’s eyes were twinkling behind his goggles.
We did it! he said. – That was amazing!
" Just like old times, said Silo.
" Just like old times, Ehri agreed, her voice softer than he was used to hearing it.
A gunshot close at hand made them jump. Fal grunted. Silo pushed him out of the way, and saw one of the Daks dazedly trying to sit up, a revolver in his hand, a deep gash across his temple. Ehri hadn’t killed the one she hit, just winged him. Silo put him back down, and this time there was no mistake.
" Fal!
He didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to see what he knew would be there. Everything had happened so quickly, it had simply been a reaction to kill the Dak when he heard the shot. But now he put it all together. The shot, Fal’s grunt, Ehri’s cry.
Damn it, he thought to himself. Damn it all to rot and shit.
Fal was on the ground. Ehri was cradling his head with one hand, and pressing the other on his chest. Blood welled out between her fingers in pulses, spreading across Fal’s clothes.
Silo had seen enough bullet wounds in his time. The volume and colour of blood, the location of the hole, told him that this one was fatal.
"Fal! Fal! Stay with me!
Fal coughed inside his mask. His eyes were roving, confused. ~ I don’t… I Silo bent down to lay a hand on his shoulder, to offer some comfort, but Ehri screamed at him to get away. He stepped back. Fal was hers, not his. He’d left and hadn’t returned for nine years. He didn’t deserve any claim on his friend.
Fal focused on Ehri’s face, which was bent down close to his. The masks and goggles seemed cruel barriers to their final moments together.
" Mother’s coming, he said.
" No. She shook her head. ~ No.
He spluttered and gasped. ~ Maybe… maybe I’ll be reborn… outside the pens.
"You’re not going to die, Fal, she told him solemnly, through gathering tears.
" Maybe one day you’ll break me out.
Silo saw Ehri’s throat clench, and whatever words she’d meant to say were lost. She held up her hand in front of him, to show the tattoo on her palm. His eyes creased in a smile. He tried to lift his own hand to show his matching design, but he didn’t have the strength. Ehri did it for him and pressed it to her own.
It’s cold, said Fal. Then he gave a short and humourless laugh. ~ Why am I scared?
He didn’t say anything else. Silo looked away and began reloading his shotgun. He could see over the tops of the buildings to the gate of the slave pens. The battle was still going on around them, the rip and crackle of gunfire, but neither side had moved an inch. The fighters overhead still dodged and weaved, but it seemed like they were almost all Equalisers now.
When he was done reloading, Ehri was still leaning over the body of her husband. ht="0"›‹
Ehri.
Don’t, she said. – Don’t speak to me.
She raised her head and stared at him hatefully. Then she stabbed a finger at the enormous gun looming over them. ~ Get on with it! she spat.
He got into the seat, his eyes running over the controls. His brain wouldn’t make sense of it at first. Fal, dead, because of him. He’d thought he wouldn’t feel responsible for other people’s deaths any more, but he realised he was wrong. It was just people he didn’t know that he didn’t care about.
He seized the firing handles. Move forward. It was all a man could do. Keep moving forward, and forget what got wrecked in your wake.
The controls, once he applied himself, were easy enough for an engineer to figure out. He lowered the barrel. When it was horizontal, it wouldn’t go any lower, but he reckoned that the shells would dip over distance, so it would be enough for his purposes. He swung the gun around until it was facing the gate to the slave pens.
This is for you, Fal, he thought, and pressed down on the trigger.
The report of the gun pounded at his ears, a slow and steady whump-whump-whump as it spat blazing tracer shells over the rooftops. As he’d hoped, gravity sucked them down, and they hit the gates of the pen squarely, smashing them to pieces in a series of detonations. But Silo wasn’t done yet. He altered the angle, sending shells into the walls to either side of the gates, raining rubble down on the men hidden at their feet. The machine-gunners on the walls were swallowed in a cascade of brick and dust and flame. Daks fled from cover, trying to escape the destruction, and were mown down as they did so.
When Silo let off the trigger, the gate had been swallowed by a dirty, malevolent cloud, swelling outward. But as it swelled, it cleared. He heard the sound of raised voices. A charge had begun. Whether it was the slaves, or the free Murthians, or both, he couldn’t see.
But the day was won, he knew that.
He waited for a sense of triumph, and felt none. All he could think of was Fal. He got out of the gunner’s seat, and saw that Ehri was standing, her rifle in her hand, and her eyes were hard and dry.
" Are you coming? she asked.
He looked down at Fal. There was no ceremony for the dead in Murthian culture. The dead were just meat, their spirits gone back to Mother.
‘Reckon I’ll stay here a while,’ he said, and the words came out in Vardic. ‘Lost my appetite for killin’.’
Ehri looked away with a snort of bitter disdf bitterain. ‘Reckon you have,’ she said. Then she was away, over the sandbags and running down the slope towards the battle.
Silo watched her go, then knelt down next to Fal. He took off the mask and the goggles. Fal’s eyes were closed. Silo sighed.
‘Reckon I have,’ he muttered.
Thirty-Four
Repartee – Bess the Liberator – A Humbling Moment – The Prisoner
It was mayhem on the quarry floor.
Visibility was down to ten metres in the fog. Everyone was shooting at shadows. Bullets whizzed randomly out of the gloom. Jez was out there somewhere, still on a rampage, her screeches like the cry of some prehistoric animal. As if one of the gargants that lived on Atalon long ago had been resurrected and set loose among them.
Frey and his crew sheltered behind a massive tracked vehicle with a drill-tipped hydraulic arm that was parked near to the quarry wall. Harkins was a total mess: every new shriek from Jez made him flail and splutter. Ashua was jigging on her haunches, a bundle of nervous energy. Crake was fussing over Bess, checking her for damage and cooing reassuring words. Pinn was groggy but alive, muttering deliriously to himself about how he won some race or another, and how he was a hero of the skies. Malvery had patched him up and declared that he’d be fine, but he wouldn’t be flying for another few weeks.
They weren’t in great shape, but they were alive, and they were close to their goal. Frey allowed himself a bit of hope.
He peered out from behind the vehicle. He could see a blurred patch of light, which he could only assume was the solitary confinement building. There were altogether too many bullets flying about in the space between him and it.
A figure came running out of the murk, across his field of vision. He raised his revolver, not sure whether it was worth taking a shot or not. The decision was taken out of his hands. A silhouette – small, ponytailed, feral – pounced into view and landed on the newcomer from behind. Frey was glad he couldn’t see what happened next
.
Crouched over the remains, Jez looked left and right, searching for new victims. He ducked back into cover with a thrill of fright. A short while later, he heard screaming on the far side of the quarry, and felt safe enough to move again.
He became aware of a chorus of yells from nearby. They weren’t cries of distress. They were meant to attract attention.
‘It’s the Murthians,’ said Ashua, catching his thought. ‘The ones on the mtining shift.’
‘What are they saying?’
‘Dunno. It’s in Murthian.’ She ruffled the hair on the back of her head. ‘But I’d guess it’s along the lines of “Get us out of here”.’
‘Reckon we ought to oblige ’em,’ said Frey. ‘A few dozen people running all over would help soak up some bullets, I reckon.’
‘You’re all heart, Frey.’
‘Hey! It’s Cap’n to you now. And I’ll have you know that beneath this tough exterior I’m actually fascinatingly sensitive and complex.’
‘Yeah, I’ll just bet you are. A fascinating narcissist.’
‘Thanks. I am pretty brave, aren’t I?’
Ashua swore under her breath. ‘Forgot about your amazing skill with words. I must get you that dictionary.’
‘Will you two stop flirting and bugger off?’ Malvery said. ‘Go free those slaves, if you’re going to.’
‘We are not flirting!’ Ashua snapped.
‘Aren’t we?’ Frey asked.
‘No.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘No. Literally, actually no.’
Frey’s eyebrow cranked a few notches higher. ‘Aren’t w-’
‘ Is this really the time or place, Cap’n? ’ Harkins screamed, making them all jump.
‘Blimey,’ said Malvery. ‘Someone’s wound up.’
‘Reckon he’s a mite distressed at seeing Jez’s morning face,’ Frey said.
‘That was not her morning face!’ Harkins was on the edge of an apoplectic fit. ‘That was her bloody hideous awful daemon face!’
‘Relationship troubles,’ said Malvery sagely. ‘I prescribe booze.’
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