Dusk n-1

by Tim Lebbon

  “What are they?” Trey asked.

  “More machines,” Hope said. “Rafe is raising us an army.”

  “It’s not him,” Kosar said again. “He’s just a conduit. And is it only happening here, for us? And if that’s the case, what about when the magic is established back in the land?” He looked down at Rafe’s hands where they were still clenched into the ground beneath him. No sparks now, but the power beneath his skin was apparent, the channeling of magic through flesh and bone. “What happens to us then? To Rafe?”

  “Why hate it after all that’s happened?” Hope asked, her amazement real enough.

  Rafe opened his eyes.

  Hope gasped and fell back. Kosar caught his breath. Rafe looked directly at Kosar, his smile tight and tired. “It is me,” he said. “It’s happening here so that I can protect us, but that’s all. Nothing else. Just… protection.” He looked at Hope. “So there’s no point trying anything like that again, witch.” And then his eyes closed, the smile faded and his skin turned pale and began to glisten with fresh sweat.

  “He’s not that boy anymore!” Hope hissed, her eyes wide and scared.

  “He hasn’t been just that boy for days,” Kosar said. “How can he be?” He knelt next to Rafe and felt his forehead. “He’s burning up again. Something’s going to happen.”

  “Those Monks are coming!” Trey said.

  Kosar stood and moved forward, putting himself between the Monks and Rafe. “They won’t stop,” he said. “While there’s one of them left that can crawl across a field of blades to get to Rafe, they won’t stop.” He looked back at Hope and Trey, glanced at Trey’s disc-sword, hefted his own weapon. “Don’t believe that this will be easy.”

  Suddenly spooked, the two horses turned and darted away between the machines, heading for the other side of the valley. They took the saddles, bags and blankets with them. Kosar took one step in pursuit and then stopped, realizing instantly that it was hopeless.

  As the sun touched the ridge to the west, and cool shadows rose, forty Red Monks screamed down into the valley. And for the first time in three centuries, magic entered into battle.

  THE FIRST MONKto die was snatched down into the foliage, pulled quickly out of sight, arms flying up and sword spinning through the air. Its scream was long and loud, but none of its companions spared a glance as they rushed by.

  They poured down from the ridge like blood rolling down a darkening face. The sun still lit the slope and picked them out in glorious color, illuminating also the things that rose to block their path. Weed-encrusted, heather-drowned metal constructs rusted almost to nothing, stone things eroded by time, seemed to turn over lazily, trapping a Monk beneath, crushing down and down until its sword protruded from the loam, hand still clasped around the handle. Some Monks fought what they encountered, and the sound of metal on metal, and metal on stone reverberated through the valley.

  Most of the things that rose did so slowly, the creaking and crackling of their first movement for three centuries a counterpoint to the Monks’ enraged screeching. The machines appeared tired as they lifted themselves from the ground that had supported them for so long. One seemed to yawn, a great metal carapace opening on a rust-riddled back to reveal thousands of sharp edges. The sun caught the metal teeth, and its touch seemed to be a balm to the recovering machine. Some of the teeth began to shine, as if restored to polished metal; the jaws opened wider, their squeal dying, lubricated by the fading light. And then it fell, gravity guiding its languid way around a rampaging Monk, the giant shell closing, grinding and finally opening to disgorge two twitching halves. It rose again, faster this time, and more teeth shone in magical renewal.

  The forty Monks soon found themselves embroiled in battle on the dividing line between light and dark. They drove forward-fighting, dying, learning very quickly that to dodge was much safer than to engage-crossing the line into night and leaving the sunlight behind. Their cloaks darkened immediately, the color of blood grown suddenly old. Their hoods remained raised. As each Monk entered into battle it let out a fierce, jubiliant scream, crying rebellion at the sky, slashing its sword against the machine rising to attack, and in their cries all possible outcomes still existed. There was no resigned defeat here, no brave last stand. Only defiance and bitter determination.

  Kosar and the others gathered close, shielding Alishia and Rafe in case any Monks broke through. They watched the incredible scenes before them, frustrated at the failing light because it stole away so much detail. But as light faded and night closed in, two things became apparent: the machines were growing in strength; and they were changing.

  One metal limb rose and flicked at the air like a giant whip, its lash a loud crack that set eardrums vibrating. The next time it came up it seemed thicker, its movement more animated. The crack was just as loud but its tone was deeper, heavier. It thrashed again, catching a Red Monk over the top of the head, sending it spinning across the ground. And this time the limb had grown thick with new, muscled flesh.

  Blood misted the air around the limb. Blood that rose, drifted in, not dropped and sprayed out. New, fresh blood, borne of nowhere natural. It gave the machine renewed life.

  It thrashed at the air again and again, the cracks merging into a thunderous roar, tearing the sky as it pursued its victim across the hillside. The machine’s base was hidden in the dark heathers and bracken, but its newly enfleshed limb rose high and proud, finding the Monk that had scurried away, pulling back and flipping it forward so quickly that the whiplash ruptured its body. The machine had lifted the Monk so high that his discharged insides were richly lit by the sun for a second before they spewed down into shadow.

  “They’re growing, ” Kosar said.

  “They’re coming back to life,” Hope said. “And there’s more. Don’t you see what’s happening? Look over there.” She pointed up at the ridgeline where the Monks had first appeared. One of them was trapped there, not even allowed to enter the valley, unable to fight its way past a small, thrashing thing that hissed and spat across the ground. Thin silvery limbs spun behind it, throwing up clots of earth and grass. The Monk went one way and the machine followed, lashing at its legs and feet, drawing blood, bringing it down. The Monk’s sword flashed out, sparks flew, and the machine fell back, but it left some of its twisting limbs in the Monk’s face. The Monk stood, swayed, stepped forward… and the thing was there again.

  “I don’t see,” Kosar said. He was confused enough by all of this, without the witch trying to create more complications. Besides, most of his thoughts still lay beyond this valley, down in those grim gray woods.

  “That’s no fighting machine,” Hope said. “These down here, maybe. They have blades and clubs, and other things we’ve yet to see, I’m sure. But that one up there is a domestic aid, if that. But whatever it is, it’s still fighting the Monks. It’s back from a long sleep, and it’s back for a reason.”

  “I don’t care,” Kosar said. He had to raise his voice above the cacophony of battle. He looked around, hefted his sword, ready to use it should any of the Monks come at him.

  “You should care,” she said. “It’s back to protect you.”

  “No it isn’t. It’s the boy, always the boy. Not me, not you, not this sleeping librarian we’ve carried with us halfway across Noreela.” Kosar glared at the witch, and though her tattoos seemed to writhe around her mouth and her eyes glimmered with menace, he did not break his gaze. “And not A’Meer, out there in the woods. Magic did nothing to protect her then. It doesn’t care.”

  Hope turned her back on Kosar and returned to her vigil over Rafe.

  “Kosar,” Trey cried. “They’ve changed tactics! Look, over there, past that outcropping.” He pointed with his disc-sword, indicating a hump of dark green rock protruding from the gentle slope. Beyond there was a blur of battle. A splash of red, a spray of sparks as metal clashed, screams and screeches that could have been animal or machine.

  “What?” Kosar said.

  �
�There are five or six Monks there,” Trey said. “They leapt down from the rock and took on the machine at its base. But there are others crawling past. See them?”

  Kosar squinted, and as he cast his eyes left to right he saw movement along the ground. Slow, careful, methodical. “They’re sacrificing themselves,” he said.

  “Ten die to get one through,” Trey said. “Even at those odds, we’re finished.”

  Kosar felt the subtle vibrations within his sword growing by the second. Perhaps it was in tune with the awakening ground, or the battle raging around them. Or maybe it was simply picking up on his own anger. He looked at Trey and offered the miner a grim smile.

  Trey, yellowish skin seeming to revel in the dusk, grinned back. “We may yet have a fight on our hands,” he said.

  “Hope,” Kosar said, “some of them may yet get through. Do you have anything that will help us?”

  The witch looked up from where she knelt next to Rafe, and for a second her expression was one of pure menace. The thief caught his breath, startled, wondering what he had disturbed. He glanced down at Rafe but the boy was unconscious, fists turned into the ground. A luminescence still fluttered around the joint between human and land.

  “Help?” the witch said. “You have magic helping you, what more do you want?”

  “It’s helping, but they’re still getting through,” Kosar said. “The machines can’t stop all of them. If they kill a hundred and one makes it past, we still probably won’t survive. I’m not a warrior, Hope, and neither is Trey. Do you have anything that might help?”

  The witch looked down at the boy, moved her hand across his body from forehead to the tips of his toes, closed her eyes. When she opened them again that menace had returned, but it faded into a deep, dark sadness.

  “I have nothing,” she said.

  “Maybe the magic will help us until the end,” Trey said. “It stands to reason. Whatever Rafe is doing to make all this possible would be pointless if one Monk got through and killed us all.”

  Kosar wished he could share the miner’s sudden optimism.

  As daylight waned, it seemed that the magic was finding its feet with greater relish. The rusted and rotten bones of dead machines continued to lift themselves from the loam, and within seconds they were clothed in a thin layer of flesh or a liquid covering of molten stone. Fluid flowed in from all around, appearing from nowhere to give the machine back its blood, enclose its old skeleton even as the skeleton itself was solidifying once more. Layer upon layer was built up and around the remains, shifting with new movement, and not always blood and flesh. Wood and stone in one place, water and flexible glass in another, magical new forms of machines arising from the sad remnants of old.

  Kosar hefted his sword and kept watch for shadows that should not move. He thought of A’Meer in the forest and tried to imagine her remains, what they would look like, gray forest creatures darting across gray leaves and making away with moist pickings to feed their colorless broods. There had been such pride in A’Meer’s life, and there should have been more purpose to her death.

  He hated the fact that she was dead, and he hated the reason more. Glancing back at the boy lying on the ground Kosar caught the witch’s gaze and held it for a second before glancing away. There was something about her eyes that he had never liked.

  “It just better be worth it, that’s all,” he said. Hope did not reply.

  “Oh, what in the Black…?” Trey whispered. “Look. Up there, on the ridge, the sun’s still just kissing it. Look!” He pointed with his disc-sword, but Kosar had seen them already.

  Monks. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Perhaps they had been lagging behind the forward group, running from farther afield in answer to whatever call had brought them here. Now they formed an almost solid red line across the ridge between the valley and the forest, bloodred and ready to pour down and flood the machine graveyard.

  “If your magic’s still got something up its sleeve, now is the time,” Kosar said, directing his comment to Rafe without turning around. Across the valley the sounds of fighting continued, though they were more sporadic now, metal on stone and the cries of Monks being killed by the magic they so despised. Breathing in, Kosar smelled red.

  As the wave of enemy began to flow down from the ridge, the first Monk broke through the barrier of reanimated machines and lunged for Kosar and Trey. Steel clashed. And three dark shapes high up caught the setting sun.

  LUCIEN MALINI WASbloodied and torn, yet not all of the blood was his own. As he entered the valley, the Shantasi bitch already drying on his sword, he sensed the stink of magic being wrought. It was not something he had smelled before, but the way it pricked at his nostrils, ran in bloody rivulets down the back of his throat, made him sick to the stomach. Yes, this was magic.

  When the first machine appeared and engaged him in battle he was not surprised. Its several long, thin arms rose, creaking and whining as they twisted and turned slowly in the air before him, clothing themselves in flesh and blood and more unnatural fluids, and Lucien lashed out with his singing sword. It bit into one limb and chopped it clean through. The amputated appendage spun in the air but it did not fall. It waited. And then, after dodging Lucien’s second parry, it reattached itself to the growing machine and struck back.

  Wounds opened in Lucien’s face, his chest, his stomach and arms. The machine curled itself around every thrust of his sword, and those rare instants when he did make contact caused little damage. As he put a slash into the machine’s new flesh, it healed again before his next strike. He aimed at the more stony protuberances, but his sword raised nothing but sparks, seeming only to add more energy to the magical monstrosity.

  Lucien raged inside. He had lived, breathed and worked all his life against this ever happening, and now he felt the magic he so hated thrumming through the ground beneath his feet. The air stank of it, the dusk shone with its reemergence, and all across the valley he heard evidence of magic’s success: screams, the sound of Monks being cleaved in two, stone and metal hacking through the brave, strong flesh of his brethren. So he raged and fought back, but as each second passed by he felt victory slipping farther away. It was being eaten by these unnatural things, sucked into their new veins and arcane power routes, subsumed beneath the dirty magic that had cast so much damage across the land all those decades ago. They had not arrived here in time. An hour earlier, two, and maybe, maybe…

  Lucien fought long and hard, taking many hits. He meted out strikes too, hacking chunks from the machine, but its suffering seemed only to increase its strength. It had no mind, of that he was sure. It had no soul, no compassion, it had no place in this world. But each wound it bore made it more real.

  Still fighting, Lucien sensed a shadow fall across the valley. And looking up, seeing the shapes circling way above the battle, for the first time he truly believed that the Monks would finally lose.

  LENORA RODE HERhawk hard, diving toward the battle, scenting blood and realizing that this was the most important moment of her life. The creature spat and bubbled beneath her, the sudden rapid descent rupturing its side and sending spurts of blood and fluid into the air. Its tentacles folded in to her command. Its head hunkered down. It had turned itself from a gliding shape into an arrowhead, slicing through the air and moving so fast that splashes of its own torn insides were left behind in bloody red clouds. It screeched and screamed but it was essentially a dumb creature, and it obeyed this command that would take it to its death.

  Lenora clung tightly to the hawk’s back, knees tucked in and hands twisted several times around the steering harness. She squinted against the buffeting winds. Yet even above this roar she heard the sound of the Mages finally sensing their quarry, the magic they had sought to regain for three hundred years, and which had driven them both completely mad. It was a sound that Lenora, seasoned warrior and soldier in the Mages’ army, hoped that she would never hear again.

  Angel sat upright on her hawk’s back. Air tore around her a
nd clapped behind her back, casting wispy vapor trails in her wake. Her eyes were wide-open. She had seen the object of her desire, and there was no way now that she would lose sight of that again.

  To Lenora’s left, a few wingspans away, S’Hivez held on to his mount, digging his heels in so hard that they penetrated the creature’s side and encouraged its inevitable demise. Blood flew back from the wounds in a fine spray, though Lenora could not tell whether all of it was from the hawk.

  Neither Mage carried any weapons. That did not worry Lenora. She had seen them in action before.

  Less than a mile beneath them, the battle raged below the setting sun’s rays. The glitter of sparks from steel striking steel was visible at this altitude, and even though the air was ripping past at an incredible rate, still the scent of blood found its way up to them. And not only blood-Red Monk blood! A sliver of fear slipped into her mind past the bombardment on her senses, and the fear gave her a thrill. A real fight, she thought. A real enemy. She was as conscious of the weapons pinned and strapped around her body as she had ever been, ready to employ them instantly upon landing. They were a part of her life and soul, as much a part of her as her own limbs. Extensions of her body rather than mere tools. And soon they would be blooded again.

  She could hear the battle now, a whisper of cries and chaos seeping past the roar of air about her ears. She could make out the lay of the land too… and what she saw amazed her. She had dreamed so much over the centuries, her ancient memories turning into something that resembled myth in her mind, but she had never truly believed that she would ever see magic in action again. Here, now, directly below her diving hawk, machines were entering into battle. The shimmering blue light of magic cast its sheen across some of their weird constructs, and yet others fought in darkness, their magic contained within. The whole area inside the bowl-shaped valley was a slightly different color from its surroundings: lighter, more animated, more alive.

  Lenora glanced across at Angel just as the Mage screeched her delight.