Crosswind

by Steve Rzasa

  Somewhere in its fragmenting engine, a spark or two must have hit the fuel tank. A ball of fire erupted from the wrecked motorwagon and the backside of the truck. A gout of steam shot out of the conflagration and quickly died out.

  The militiamen nearby yelled warnings to another and dove for cover.

  Winch glimpsed Cope running across the street toward him, with a slight limp on the right leg, as he fired a handful of wild shots toward the scattering guards.

  “Stay down!” Cope yelled. “Winch, duck your head!”

  Winch ducked.

  The back end of the truck exploded in a tremendous flash that threw debris and flame nearly higher than the gate. The explosion lifted the truck bodily a good six feet off the pavement before dropping it to a careless landing that broke the wheels clean off.

  The ammunition crates caught fire. Munitions popped and burst, sending off an insane pinwheeling display of sparks like fireworks on the Fourteenth of Octaron.

  Something impacted the barrel above Winch. It shattered the rim and sent a stream of water pouring onto him. He pushed out of the way just as Cope slammed into him. They went down in a tangle of arms, legs, and, in Cope’s case, cussing.

  “Get up. Get up!” Cope dragged Winch to his feet. A maniacal grin lit his face, which was scored with dirt and soot. Soot, Winch realized, was falling like rain over everything. “Tarnal skies, Winch, when you’ve an idea, it’s one with wings.”

  Winch could see that. The truck, motorwagon, and both doors of the gate were now a flaming pile of wood and metal. One of the gatehouses of stone had partially collapsed. There was no way that heap would be moved aside anytime soon. Even the militia stared in abject shock—the ones who hadn’t been blown aside in the explosion and weren’t strewn over the pavement like so many rag dolls.

  Alarm bells rang. It didn’t seem the explosion had thrown the Peace Branch boys off their trail, though. Winch counted five clambering out of their motorwagons. All were armed. Someone blew a whistle.

  “Don’t suppose they’re here to offer congratulations.”

  Cope shook his head. “Come on. One of these buildings has to have a way over the river. We’re still stuck inside the Old City, and the aerodrome’s on the other side of that blamed city wall.”

  He and Winch bolted into an alley between two nicely appointed homes. Winch hoped the owners didn’t mind the bullet holes that the exploding munitions had added to the well-kept stucco walls.

  Winch had forgotten that the river lay between them and the tenements, and beyond that, the aerodrome. It gave him some comfort to ruminate on the fact that the river was the same Cobalt River that flowed through the Wright Valley at the feet of Perch.

  “You put on a good show, big brother,” Cope said, “but you’ve gone and wrecked our only way of getting through the city wall.”

  “Oh.” Winch blushed. “So what’s your idea?’

  “I’m sure I have a good one coming,” Cope said with a grin.

  Friday

  The houses nestled into this block were high-class, of that Winch had no doubt. They backed up onto a patch of land sided by the Cobalt River. Each house had its own small, walled-in yard and a stucco outbuilding or two that mimicked the main house. Laundry lines ran between pairs and sometimes trios of the houses, dangling their clothing like signal flags on a warship. Bleach willows drooped over the alleyway. Winch brushed through low-hanging branches as they ran between two houses.

  He still had his rucksack, and so did Cope, thankfully.

  Shouts echoed behind them.

  “Tarnation,” Cope skidded to a halt. Then he applied his elbow to a window in a door set into one house. Glass shattered, and he stuck his hand through the new opening. The door clicked open. “Inside!”

  They burst into a kitchen that would make Lysanne deathly jealous. Everything was clean, from the iron stove right down to the black and white tile floor.

  A small woman in housemaid’s clothes and white apron had both her hands over her mouth, and her eyes were white with fear.

  Cope put a finger to his lips and kept his gun in hand. “Now, sweets, let’s not make any untoward noise.” He kept whispering until he was right up to her, taking slow steps.

  She turned to run, but Cope grabbed her around the waist with the arm that held the gun, and he clamped his own hand over her mouth. “No screams. We’re not here to hurt you. Is anyone else at home this fine day?”

  She shook her head frantically.

  “Good. Winch, find me a place to hide her.”

  Winch searched until he located the pantry. Inside were bags of flour, rice, canned and jarred foods, and enough room for a petite person. “In here!” he hissed.

  “Well done. Now, find a rag. Make that two rags.”

  Winch pulled one off a counter. Shoes came pounding down the alley. He tossed the rag to Cope, who caught it with the hand he’d had across the woman’s mouth. Mercifully, she didn’t scream.

  “We won’t hurt you, doll,” Cope said, “but you need to be out of the way, and we need not to be found.” He was exceedingly polite even as he tied the rag as a gag around her mouth. He tucked his gun into his belt as he used the second rag to bind her hands behind her.

  Winch helped him get her into the pantry. They shut it and leaned against it, panting for breath. “We ought to tie her feet, too.”

  “Why not just lock her in?” Cope wiped his brow.

  “What if no one is home? She’ll be trapped for hours or days.” Winch grabbed another rag off the counter and bound her feet together. “Sorry, Miss.”

  She glared at him.

  They backed out of the pantry. Cope shut the door. “Superb.”

  “Some plan,” Winch said.

  “Yours was a big explosion,” Cope said sourly. “Don’t criticize.”

  More footsteps, nearer this time. Cope motioned for him to duck. He sidled over to the back door, still crouching. He motioned with his hand. Follow.

  Winch did, taking what he was sure were silly-looking steps. As if he were playing a stalking game with Fremont and Wade in their own home…

  Crrrunch.

  Winch froze. The noise was near deafening in the silent house. Cope gestured angrily with his gun, to Winch’s…feet? Thel preserve him. The glass from the broken window. He’d forgotten. Gingerly he stepped around it.

  Too late. A shadow darkened the door.

  Cope pressed up against the wall and slid ever so slowly up until he was standing.

  Winch flattened himself on a cabinet under a counter, then thought better of it and opened the cabinet as an impromptu shield.

  The back door creaked slowly open. A shiny black shoe and well-tailored pant leg stepped cautiously in. Winch held his breath as a Peace Branch man in black hat slipped into the kitchen. He had a cherubic face and dark eyes that swept the room. He held a revolver ready.

  Suddenly the pantry door thudded under repeated blows. Winch gritted his teeth. The housemaid.

  The Peace Branch officer narrowed his eyes and stepped into the kitchen. Winch had no other chance. He leapt up and grabbed the officer by his gun arm.

  “What?” The officer glared at him. He put out one hand, without touching Winch.

  And a force like a blast of wind pushed Winch back two feet.

  No. There were more officers. Cythramancers.

  “Remain still,” the officer said. “You’re under—”

  Cope bashed the officer in the back of the head with the butt of his levergun. The young man sagged into Cope’s waiting arms. “The door!” Cope snapped.

  Winch helped Cope move the man aside and shut it. They leaned the officer against the cabinets where Winch had tried to hide.

  Cope blew out a breath.

  “Did you see that?” Winch regarded the limp body with distrust

  “He’s a cythramancer, isn’t he?”

  Winch nodded. “I know Beam said there were more…but I’d hoped it was boasting.”

  Cope
scowled. “Apparently not. Get his gun, will you?”

  Winch palmed the officer’s discarded revolver. It was a smaller, snub-nosed Klaus that held five shots. And it was full.

  They had to find a better hiding place before someone else came to investigate. “Let’s try back out this way.” Winch peered cautiously out the jagged hole in the window. He could hear sounds, but nothing was headed their way.

  “No. Not out there.” Cope pointed toward the arched corridor leading from the kitchen. There was a staircase of mahogany at the far end. “There. And up.”

  They paused by each doorway along the corridor long enough to peer inside the adjacent rooms. No one there. Winch got a glimpse in one of a lavish dining room with glistening wooden chairs, plush rug, and small chandelier of brass.

  Cope rounded the stairwell. He pointed his gun up the steps as he took them cautiously. Winch stayed right behind him, glad he’d appropriated the Peace Branch officer’s revolver.

  That was when the front door burst open.

  It banged loudly on its hinges. “All right! This is Peace Branch! All occupants, stand ready—”

  Sergeant Taube’s voice faltered when he locked gazes with Winch. “Rusted spikes. It’s them!”

  There were three more behind him.

  “Move it!” Cope tugged on Winch’s arm with one hand and fired his gun with the other. Taube and his men practically threw themselves out of the line of fire. Winch and Cope thundered up the steps. Gunshots followed.

  The upstairs hall was similarly abandoned. “Has to be a master bedroom around here ,” Cope muttered.

  “A balcony?” Winch didn’t like where Cope’s thinking was headed.

  Cope grinned.

  They found it at the end of the hall. And like Cope had surmised, it offered a wonderful view of the Cobalt River from a second-story balcony surrounded by a wrought iron rail. Beyond the river lay the ramshackle tenements. Winch noticed someone had taken great pains to disguise the sides facing the Old City with a much nicer paint job and upkeep.

  “Oh, beautiful.” Cope reached up and tugged on a rope stretching from their balcony to the neighboring house. It ran through a pair of pulleys and had several more feet unused in a coil by their feet. “Sharing laundry lines. How neighborly.”

  “What use is that?” Footsteps pounded up the steps inside. Winch rushed to the bedroom door and slammed it shut. Ah, it had a deadbolt. Someone valued their privacy. “Cope, give me a hand!”

  “How ’bout two?” Cope joined Winch as he pushed against an elaborate armoire. It squeaked and scraped against the wood floor until they had it firmly blocking the door. Winch exhaled.

  “Now, as for what you were asking…” Cope went back out to the balcony. He aimed his gun at the far pulley for the laundry line, the pulley in the neighbor’s yard. One gunshot later he was pulling the rope up from where it’d fallen. Men’s and ladies’ undergarments fluttered down into the yard like autumn’s leaves. “Be a sport and yank one of the hooks off that gaudy bedpost, will you?”

  Winch saw what he meant. Each of the four posts was decorated with ornate brass claws, which he supposed went with the lion’s head on the headboard. He cranked and pulled on it until his hands hurt. One more twist…there! It pulled out.

  “That’s it.” Cope had the rope coiled neatly around his arm, a considerable length. He took the claw and tied a tight knot around its talons. “There. That should hold. Now, the rope looks sturdy enough.”

  Winch watched him with wide eyes as he started twirling the newly weighted end. “Sturdy enough for what?”

  “Not what, dear brother. Whom.” Cope winked. He gave the claw a mighty toss.

  It soared out over the river, gaining altitude, before falling down.

  Clink!

  The claw rattled its way across a fire escape on the nearest tenement, a good fifty feet from the balcony and two stories above them.

  “Oh, wonderful.”

  Gunshots boomed on the other side of the door. Splinters flew across the room as bullets ripped the door and the armoire apart.

  “We’d better test it.” Winch grabbed the rope. Whatever happened at the other end, it was better than this.

  Cope grabbed the rope too. Together they clambered over the iron railing until they were perched precariously on the other side, their boots wobbling on the narrow edge of the balcony. “Would you like to pray first?”

  The gunfire stopped. Winch heard the armoire creak and screech against the floor. The armoire slid slowly away from the bedroom door of its own accord.

  “Keep the cythraul at bay, Ifan.”

  “Good. Well, then.” Cope nudged him and they both fell forward.

  They hollered together. Wind rushed by Winch’s ears. He’d left his stomach back on the balcony, apparently. His boots brushed the top of—a tree? One of the outbuildings? He didn’t bother looking.

  Gunshots rang out all around as they swung across. Next thing he knew, Cope yelled, “Let go! Let go!”

  Winch released his grip. He and Cope tumbled unceremoniously to the ground just beside the tenement. Something cushioned his landing, and Winch was thankful, until he realized it moldy hay. The smell was unbearable.

  But they were just barely across the river. And they still had both rucksacks full of the evidence they needed to expose Trestleway’s invasion. Cope’s feet dangled over the four-foot drop to the water. He panted heavily, but a smile curled the corner of his lips. “Don’t even say it, Cope,” Winch said.

  “What?”

  “That it was grand, exciting, some nonsense like that.” Winch got to his feet and held out a hand. He pulled Cope up.

  “Huh. Your words, then, should do.” Cope slapped him heartily on the back.

  An angry shout carried across the water. Sergeant Taube climbed up onto the outbuilding, apparently boosted by some unlucky Branch officer’s shoulders. He brandished his gun. Cope reached for his gun.

  Winch stopped him. “No, let’s get out of here. He can’t reach us now.”

  Then Beam joined Taube. He smiled and put his hand atop Taube’s gun. “You boys have gumption, I will grant that,” Beam said, his voice booming across the river. “But you’ve still no idea the power you face.

  Peace Branch officers gathered on the banks. Some wielded their guns, but a handful didn’t. Instead, they raised their hands in a similar fashion to Beam.

  “Great skies,” Cope whispered.

  More cythramancers, within the ranks of Peace Branch. Winch bit his lip. But could he stop them this time? Thel had given him the power, hadn’t He?

  “Allfather, stop them from unleashing their dark forces,” he murmured. “You are the one true power, and your Exaltson has overcome them.”

  He felt nothing spectacular. But then again, the cythramancers weren’t doing anything, either…

  Metal squealed.

  Winch couldn’t place the sound until he saw the first door rise into the air, a good three feet above Beam’s head. He spread his arms wide, and more metal rent. Doors of all manner floated up from the alleys, from the backs of the houses, from the fronts of outbuildings, until twenty of them hovered in the air.

  “If you’re going to do something, Winch,” Cope said, “now’s the time and more’s the better.” He aimed his gun but didn’t fire. So far not one man was shooting.

  Winch clamped his eyes shut. Stop this, Thel, please! Use Your Hallowed Sepyr. Deny them this ability!

  Nothing. Beam kept right on smiling, and he threw his arms forward. The other cythramancers followed him, and their squadron of doors flew across to the river. Then, a few at a time, they settled into a rectangular formation. Cope cried out as a few set their edges on the bank at his feet. Soon the brothers were staring at a bridge of doors that spanned the river.

  Winch was crestfallen. Nothing had happened. His prayer failed. He failed. Had Thel abandoned him? Was he not sincere enough? Had he offended the Allfather?

  “Apprehend them, officers,�
� Beam said. He kept his hands raised.

  Cope pulled on Winch’s arm. “Run!”

  His feet listened, but Winch couldn’t tear his eyes or his heart from the scene of the cythramancers and other Peace Branch officers stampeding across the bridge of doors floating four feet above the river.

  • • •

  Cope found them another motorwagon. This one he liberated with no ceremony, just the muzzle of his gun under the nose of a panicked, portly man in a fine pinstriped suit of grey and black. They sped off down the west end of Straight Street on the outside of the Old City walls.

  The ride, save for the rumble of this black model’s engine, was quiet. Finally Cope cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t be but a few minutes.”

  Winch nodded. He had nothing to say.

  “What happened back there?”

  Not now, Cope.

  “Was Thel unavailable for your telegram?” There was a brittle edge to this.

  Winch chewed back a retort. It didn’t make sense. He’d seen the power of the three disarm the cythraul in that cell this morning, so why shouldn’t the Exaltson grant that same defense now? What was the difference?

  “I’m beginning to wonder what it was you saw in the first place,” Cope said dully.

  That cut it. “Are you saying I lied?”

  “No secret you carry a big torch for your Thel and His party, Winch.”

  “You weren’t there…”

  “You’re right, I wasn’t there!” Cope smacked a hand on the steering wheel. “And I’m never there when you get to rambling about your precious Exaltson, am I? It’s all about you. Never a buzz about what I think!”

  Winch was aghast. “You can’t mean that.”

  “Huh.” Cope didn’t face him. “I can mean all of it, thank you. Save any future preaching for the less fortunate, will you?”

  “What’s your issue?” Winch wasn’t going to let him sulk. Not now. Not with the aerodrome buildings growing closer on the horizon. “Are you disappointed in me? Or in Thel?”

  “Does it matter which one?”

  Winch had no answer for that. Cope was right. He was no preacher. And all those times he’d tried telling Cope of the power of redemption, the might of Thel. What did that mean in light of this spectacular failure?