Infernal Machines

by Jacobs, John Hornor

  It was surprising to hear him refer to Rumans as ‘us’ since he’d spent most of his life on the outside looking in at Ruman life. The Hardscrabble changes all men, but some men’s natures are indomitable.

  He looked at me and his gaze shifted to Lina. ‘I’ll work to ensure dvergar rights, as I have promised Neruda. Right now, I need your help.’ He beckoned us to look at the map of the Hardscrabble from the Illvatch to the Grenthvar, from the Big Empty up north to the Bay of Mageras. Fisk lifted a carved travertine figure he’d taken from a knightboard – a stone horse representing cavalry. He placed it south-east of Passasuego, in the crook between the Big Rill and the White River.

  ‘They ride with no resistance now from Rume and we have not enough men to stop them. But we have one advantage – we know the Hardscrabble. I have some soldiers, those men born and raised here, and I have you, the dvergar, who can move in the hills, in the shoals, in the gulleys and through bramblewrack, and harry them. We must harry them. They cannot come to think of this place as theirs. We will disabuse them of this notion.’

  Lina was nodding as he spoke, eyes bright. I could tell wheels turned behind her eyes – she had ideas.

  Fisk nodded at Livia and she rose, left the praetorium tent and returned shortly with Sapientia. ‘Since you’ve been gone, I’ve tasked Sapientia to our western problem.’

  My friend wore dungarees and an engineer’s leather apron, scorched leather gloves tucked into her belt that held knives, awls, rasps. And, in a holster, a slick-looking firearm. She had her shirtsleeves rolled up to her biceps and her arms were corded with muscle. She winked at me.

  ‘Obviously, I have reason to want to be part of this mission, Shoe,’ Sapientia said. ‘I’ve lived most of my adult life in Passasuego and here, in the West. I would not see it die underneath Medieran hands.’

  ‘If there’s a mission, and Sapientia is a part of it, you don’t even have to ask. I am invested,’ I said, turning back to my old partner. I guess he wasn’t my partner any more. More like boss, it seemed. Wasn’t ever an even partnership, anyway. ‘What’s the mission, Fisk?’

  ‘You’ll pick ten of your best, along with ten legionnaires, and Sapientia, and you will make the Medierans regret they ever came to Occidentalia. We’re in desperate need of time, for mining, smelting, munitions, and fortifications.’ He looked at me. ‘I trust you, Shoe. Harry these sons of whores. Slow them. Make them fear the night. Kill their horses. Unman them.’

  ‘War with their minds,’ I said. I nodded. ‘I can do that. Lina?’

  ‘I’ve already picked out my men,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll have guns and horses enough?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. You won’t want for any supplies,’ he said. ‘The only thing you’ll lack is time.’

  ‘We’re always short on time,’ I said. I stood up. ‘So let me meet these legionnaires. Will they have issues with me? With Lina and her men?’

  ‘They’ll not question you. I’ve made sure of that. You’re not going to like this, Shoe,’ he said. He dug in his pocket and withdrew something metal and tossed it at me. I snatched it out of the air. It was a badge with a vitis emblazoned on the front, and words praising Immortal Rume. The vitis – traditionally, the centurion’s staff of office – looked uncomfortably like a phallus without the nuts.

  ‘Centurion Ilys,’ Livia said, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘Would you like some more coffee?’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying to take it all in. ‘But I could use a drink.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Dogs Might Turn On Their Masters

  OF LINA’S MEN, I only knew three – Seanchae, Ringold, and the one they called the Wee Garrotte. Of the Ruman legionnaires, I knew only a man named Aemelanus Sumner who was an evocati wolf of the seventh legion – indeed, all the Rumans legionnaires to accompany us were wolves. Sumner had been one of the men escorting the Cornelian up the Big Rill, so long ago, when he’d faced stretchers, pistoleros, and all the beasts of the shoal. I could recall no dvergar hate from him, but I daresay he would rather serve a Ruman commander, though I imagine Fisk had sorted out any umbrage these men might feel at my primacy. Mediera was knocking on the Hardscrabble doors and all of his men were ready to answer them.

  We rode out, fast and hard, and covered many miles the first day. The legionnaires gave Sapientia and Lina sly looks but other than that there were no overtures made by the soldiers, which was a remarkable amount of restraint for men of a legion that had not seen any rest or relaxation for over a year.

  Sapientia handled herself well on horseback and outlined her thoughts regarding the anti-cavalry tactics.

  ‘We’ve got to get as far west and north as we can, quickly. To find the Medieran van. We cause them enough problems,’ Sapientia said, holding the reins loosely in her hands and looking west, ‘they’ll become incensed and reckless. They’ll be happy to chase us.’

  ‘And then we can lead them a merry chase,’ I said, nodding. It was a good plan.

  ‘One with a bloody end, for them, at least,’ she said. ‘I need to know possible places for ambush.’

  ‘We convince ourselves we can hold and keep a land but, as we’ve learned hard, we’re easily dispossessed. There are nameless and mapless miles of sun-cracked rocks, scrub, bramblewrack, ridgeline and valley that neither man, dvergar, nor vaettir hold and there’s no trace of their feet passing over them. Those bits of the Hardscrabble we’ve had the pride – maybe hubris – to name and know are few. Sometimes the shoal grasses are an ocean, every trail a dead river.’

  ‘I would not have known you were a poet, Shoe, simply from your appearance,’ Sapientia said, smiling.

  I cleared my throat. There was always something about her that made me, if not uneasy, then discomposed. Her bright intelligence and beauty could catch me off guard at the strangest of moments. ‘There’s the Bitter Spring and the Long Slide, but we’ve already used those against them, or at least their engineer and his men, and I have no idea if they discovered the bodies or know of those locations.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘There’s thousands of gulleys and riven creek beds that end in canyons. Any one of them will do. There’s Big Sugarloaf and Wee Sugarloaf.’

  ‘Sugarloaf?’ Sapientia asked.

  ‘They’ve got other names. Dvergar like naming mountains after genitalia and anatomy,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think that practice is constrained to dwarves, Centurion Ilys,’ the engineer said. Lina snorted.

  ‘Well,’ I continued, ‘there’s the Salt Flats south of Broken Tooth and Breentown. Rocks there jut up like sentries and there’s a shitload of hidey-holes for us to point carbines from.’

  ‘Let me evaluate as we go. I understand the Bitter Spring is the closest.’

  ‘Yes. Once we get eyes on the Medierans, we can make better plans. The main force will be slower than molasses, but their van, that’s what I’m worried about,’ I said. ‘What do you have planned?’

  She gestured to her pack mules. ‘I’ve crates of caltrops, and enough silver to send daemons up each of their arses. And a few prototypes of some seriously vicious infernal traps.’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of ideas, myself,’ I said. ‘You ever seen an auroch stampede?’

  She smiled. ‘I think this will be the beginning of a wonderful working relationship, Centurion Ilys.’

  ‘Shoestring,’ I said without thinking.

  That night we bedded down in sight of the Bitter Spring. Sapientia and I rode over to inspect it. The firepit was as dead as Beleth, and it had seen no use since we’d last been there, if I am any judge of these things. And I am. At the end of the next day, we’d passed over the Long Slide – I described to Sapientia how we’d used it against them in the past – and rode until the moon was up. In five days, we caught the first sight of the Medieran van.

  It was night, and they made no effort to bank their fires. We spotted the orange glow of flames and the scent of burning brush and bramblewrack a mile off. We perched on a ridgeline out of rifle r
ange and stared down at the camp, our horses far behind us so that their nickering would not alert anyone.

  ‘The gall of them,’ Lina said. ‘Proud as sin.’

  ‘That’s why we’re here,’ Sapientia said. ‘Can we tell which direction they rode in from?’

  Lina held up a finger, like a schoolmarm admonishing us to patience. ‘Wait here.’ She slunk off into the darkness, blending into the shadows. We waited. She returned in an hour, breathing heavily. ‘Lookouts there,’ she pointed, jabbing a finger at an outcrop of rock. ‘There and there.’ A small rise and a far ridgeline. ‘Standard amount of guards, one for every twenty or so men. I’d put their numbers at five hundred, a tenth of their main force. Rode in from the north-west.’

  ‘So, they’ll be headed south to east, I imagine,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t have enough caltrops to cover all that. But let’s just assume they’re making a beeline toward Dvergar and put out the nasties there,’ Sapientia said.

  Lina tsked. ‘Nope. They’re going to make for there,’ she said, pointing south toward a declivity between the ridgeline we occupied, and its twin to the west. ‘So many on the hoof, they’ll not bushwhack or try to cut some new trail. They’ll go the path of least resistance. There’s shoal grass beyond, and maybe a creek bed with flowing water, and they’ll know it in the morning when they send out scouts. That’s where we place them.’

  Sound reasoning. And a surge of pride – my granddaughter knew the land and how to read it and had a mind sharp enough to etch her name into history.

  So we rode into the night, south, and found shoal grasses and a trickle of water from a mineral spring. I was loath to put down the caltrops where other riders and their horses might find them, but they were lead and would eventually rust away. Until then, any rider whose mount’s hoof found one would be unseated and the horse lame.

  ‘The worst part,’ Sapientia said, setting down the four-pronged metal items. She’d brought hundreds and we used at least a quarter of them, a deadly constellation of evil stars fallen to the earth. ‘Is that we won’t get to witness it when our Medieran friends find them.’ She chuckled. ‘I would pay to see that.’

  ‘I, too,’ Lina said. ‘Though I hate to see the horses harmed.’

  ‘Horses are the first to die, in war, in the Hardscrabble. Men shortly after.’

  ‘Good thing we aren’t men,’ Sapientia said, and winked at Lina. Lina laughed in response.

  By morning, we were miles south of them. We turned east, all of us tired. The legionnaires fell from their mounts at every rest, hobbled their horses, gave them water and oats, rubbed them down. We followed suit and took what rest we could, eating hardtack and jerked auroch. Before dark, Sapientia requested we dig a series of waist-deep holes near a fall line where striated rock met shoal. She built a charcoal fire, huffed a portable bellows on it, and melted silver. The dvergar she sent to find flat stones upon which to set her warding. It was a long process, and a frustrating one, for every time a legionnaire or dvergar approached her work, to catch a glimpse of what occupied her, she would bellow, ‘The fuck, moron! Do you want to kill us all? Daemonwork here! Back the fuck up and stay the fuck away if you know what’s good for you.’

  The day dragged on, though, and I was afraid our lack of movement, in addition to the charcoal fire, would draw the Medieran van to us. I sent out Sumner and his best choice to ride scout and see what they could see on our backtrail.

  ‘Sapientia,’ I said, approaching.

  ‘The fuck!’ Her head popped up out of the hole. ‘Did I not make myself clear?’

  ‘We’re sitting maids out here, waiting on suitors. How goes your …?’

  ‘Surprises,’ she said. ‘I am almost through. We’ll need some ground cover here, brush, or what not, to cover them up.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Some call them pangu, from the Ægyptian.’ She held up a thin spike. I peeked into the hole. There was a stone with intricate silverburns and warding surrounded by the spikes. ‘All it takes is a bit of blood to initialise the summoning process and then—’

  ‘Damnation,’ I said, breathing. ‘How big a bastard will come through?’

  ‘Big enough to kill any nearby. Maybe more.’ She sucked her teeth. ‘In retrospect, it might have been a mistake to use the caltrops first. They’ll be more wary.’

  I sent the dvergar out for cover for the pangu and had the legionnaires prepare mats to cover the pits. Sapientia made the final placement over the devices.

  She surveyed the pits. ‘This looks like any other stretch of Hardscrabble. And mounted? They’ll never see them.’ Her hair had come loose; sweat beaded her brow and neck. Placing her hands on her hips, she smiled. ‘I think we’re through here.’

  Sumner and his man returned, excited. ‘Their scouts spotted us. One turned back to the main van and the other is on our arse, maybe ten minutes behind.’

  Sapientia and I looked at each other. ‘This might just work out. We want them to come here,’ I said. ‘Let’s get this scout.’

  ‘Do not let him get close to the pangu,’ Sapientia said. ‘Drop him before he has a chance.’

  We took position. Horses behind an outcrop, men prone by boulders and a small waist-high gulley in the Hardscrabble dirt. We left the smeltfire burning but added some brush for more smoke.

  The scout was skittish, but couldn’t deny his own curiosity. Or his role. He rode down the fall line in the trail our horses had cut and Sumner shot his horse out from under him. The beast collapsed and the scout fell and rolled, with some considerable grace; he popped up on his feet with two six-guns pulled. Dvergar and legionnaire opened fire and the Medieran scout quickly found himself leaking from more holes than his body could bear.

  We quickly stripped his body and dragged it, and (with some effort) his horse, carefully around the pangu and arranged them in open view so that the corpses would draw the gaze of anyone approaching on horseback and away from the infernal devices waiting for them. Sapientia took the man’s Hellfire. His gear and gold, I showed to Sumner (for accountability’s sake) and stored on Bess to turn into the Ruman coffers, as protocol instructed. There was a day some of it might find its way into my trousers, to buy a drink or ease my body after many labours on the trail, but I was a godsdamned centurion and I didn’t fancy crucifixion. Rankers and auxiliaries can pocket loot and get lashes. Centurions, with our greater pay, are held to higher standards, as I’d learned during my time in the army.

  Then we rode hard, north-east, following the fall line until it disappeared into the earth and beyond.

  There came a shiver, and the earth shook. Bess hawed unmercifully. The dvergar ponies and the legionnaires’ horses nickered and whinnied. A great conflagration arose behind us. A billowing and expanding fireball, rising up, cocooning a flaming horror, full of malice.

  ‘Well, they found the pangu,’ Sapientia said, with grim satisfaction. ‘Let’s make some tracks. None of this will matter if we don’t keep ahead of them.’

  That night we camped near halfway up the slope of Wee Sugarloaf, in an open ledge that gave a good view of the land around and many routes to flee. We lit no fires and made sure the horses were well fed and watered. I posted five men as sentries – Seanchae, Ringold, and three legionnaires – for the first shift. Each night held four watches, and everyone, save Sapientia, took part.

  ‘There’s something moving down there,’ Lina said. I stirred.

  I’d been sleeping lightly, my head cradled on my hands as if looking at the stars. ‘Where?’ I said, rising.

  Sumner rose and kicked at his men’s boots. They hopped up, scrabbling for carbines and checking longknives and pistols.

  I crept to where Lina sat, half-obscured by imlah brush and clumps of sage and shoal grass that wreathed the lower half of Wee Sugarloaf.

  Looking out over the Hardscrabble, I let my eyes adjust to the night, the faint starlight. The moon had set beyond the far ridgeline and the earth was shadowed and grey.

>   ‘There,’ she whispered, pointing. Down a gulley cut by erosion from the infrequent storms on the shoals, a dark shape moved. A loping man. Beyond it, more followed.

  ‘Wolves?’ I said.

  ‘Bah,’ Lina responded. ‘Look more like stretchers.’

  My gaze followed the forms, moving swiftly and then pausing, as if they were scenting the air.

  ‘Vaettir rarely run on all fours,’ I said, softly. Sound carries down from the heights and echoes strangely over the plains.

  ‘I know what stretchers do, old one,’ Lina said.

  ‘Daemon-gripped,’ I said. ‘Beleth taught the Medieran engineer to fashion them from men.’

  Sapientia, crouching nearby, said, ‘Do you see any men? Un-possessed?’

  ‘No,’ Lina responded.

  ‘There will be one, somewhere maybe here, maybe with the van. And he will control them, otherwise—’ Sapientia said.

  ‘They’d be rabid and turn feral,’ I said.

  ‘That’s one way to say it. They would kill, indiscriminately,’ she said. ‘But if you can see a controller – he’ll have some sort of talisman or blood connection with the daemon-gripped – and you kill him …’

  ‘The dogs might turn on their masters,’ Lina said.

  ‘Ia-damn,’ Lina said. ‘That’s some terrible shit. Thank the old gods that Beleth is dead.’

  ‘He was glad, as well,’ I said. I held up my hand. ‘Wait.’ The loping lead daemon-gripped stopped and then a shrieking sound echoed across the shoals surrounding Wee Sugarloaf. They had scented us.

  The time for hiding was over. ‘To arms!’ I yelled, making my voice punch through the night. ‘Carbines!’

  The legionnaires scrambled up and onto their feet in a flash, armed and clanking over to the edge of the slope where Lina and I watched. The daemon-gripped moved faster than wolves might and, having seen what possession makes of men, I could not imagine what terrible wreckage their gait would make of their hands and feet. Mankind, dvergar, vaettir – we are not built to run about on all fours.