Crystal Rain

by Tobias S. Buckell

  Three guns on wheels were pulled around the side of the sacrificial pyramid. The first round knocked Ma Wi Jung sideways a whole foot.

  John dragged the ship on toward the priests, gritting his teeth. Mongoose-men ran around him with nets and began capturing priests, but only a mere handful before John shouted at them over the external loudspeakers.

  They had ten high-ranking priests when they flew back into the cross fire. One priest for every mongoose-man left.

  Ma Wi Jung barely made it to the docks. Smoke poured out of every opening as John made his final drop. He shouted instructions to the mongoose-men as they left.

  He wondered if Pepper could see the sorry shape of the ship, no longer a sleek traveler between suns, but a casualty of war. He could see a fire raging down in the rear areas where the engines struggled to power them back into the air.

  John raised the Ma Wi Jung up over the harbor, just getting it over Grantie’s now broken arch. He flew east away from the peninsula, away from the Azteca ships and out of sight, before he nosed it into the water. They would never know that Capitol City couldn’t raise Ma Wi Jung at any time.

  For a while the ship floated, while John tried to get a response from it.

  Would the ship be okay? And if so, how long would it take to mend the damage taken? John got a glimmering of an answer through his connection: fifty years.

  Water rushed in through the broken bay doors and filled the ship. Several air-lock doors snapped shut to preserve airspace in critical areas.

  Choking in the smoke created by the doused fires, John fumbled his way to the upper air lock. He yanked open a locker and pulled out a life-raft packet.

  Then he paused.

  Ship, are any first-aid kits available?

  The location came to him. John fumbled his way down, still holding on to the bulky raft packet until he found a storage cabinet and opened it. Water threatened to sweep him away, rising to his chest. He grabbed the floating bright red box with the white cross on the side and stumbled back toward the air lock with each item under his arms.

  Two hands came in handy now.

  He threw the life raft out the air lock and clambered up after it.

  When he cleared the hatch, he took several deep breaths of fresh air, grabbed the life raft, and ran down the length of the wing into the cold water.

  He pulled the rip cord and the packet inflated itself into a full raft. John climbed in, found the collapsible oars, and began to paddle his way toward Capitol City. It would take a day to reach it. John knew the currents that he had to take to get to the city’s harbor, avoiding the jagged reefs and rocks around the peninsula.

  John turned and watched the Ma Wi Jung slip beneath the waves. He marked the location in his head.

  He was a Pilot. He always knew where he was. He could find her again, in fifty years. If Pepper wasn’t angry enough to kill him first.

  The whole way back, John thought about Haidan lying in the wheelchair.

  Hang on old friend. I may yet help you again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  The mongoose-men had moved Dihana again. She’d ordered them to take her to the walls with Haidan. When he’d wake, she’d tell him what she knew of the battle outside the walls. When he fell asleep, she’d watch and listen to the battle and do what she could to ease his pain.

  Haidan sweated constantly and had taken a turn for the worse after John had left. She had the feeling he’d been holding on until then, but now felt he could let go. He barely remained lucid. The mongoose-men seemed to think he wouldn’t last the day. They’d drugged him to ease the pain of his wounds.

  “He bleeding inside,” they told her. “Nothing we can do but wait.”

  One of the wall runners came up with the news that the Azteca had fallen back. The distant shelling didn’t let up, but the warriors on the ground no longer advanced.

  She’d been hoping the attack by the ancient flying machine would have had more of an immediate effect, like the Azteca leaving. But now it had been almost a day since the raid, and John deBrun had disappeared out to sea with the flying machine.

  Things had gone from hopeless, to hopeful, to uncertain, within the last day.

  One of her ragamuffins came up in the late morning as she ate some stale bread. “John deBrun here. He want to see you.”

  “Well, bring him.” He’d survived. But where was the airship?

  Several minutes later John arrived, surrounded by mongoose-men. Seawater dripped from his wet clothes. He set a bright red box with a cross on the ground next to Haidan’s wheelchair.

  “I’m going to need a table to lay him out on,” he said.

  “You a doctor now?” Dihana asked. John wiggled his two hands in the air, and Dihana blinked. “Okay,” she said. “What you need?”

  John shook his head and opened the red box. “Anyone know if that man Pepper is around?” Several small metal machines gleamed inside. John surveyed them, then chose one. It was nothing more than a rounded cylinder with black tips and textured surface.

  “He escape. He somewhere in the city, no one know where.”

  John nodded, not surprised. Behind him the mongoose-men cleared a table. Four of them picked Haidan up out of his wheelchair, pulling the blankets away and letting them drop to the ground, and laid him on it.

  “You need to get rid of he clothes to operate?” they asked.

  “No.” John took the instrument and box up to the table. Haidan moaned and moved. John put the box on the table and leaned over Haidan. He inserted the cylinder into Haidan’s mouth and let it go.

  The cylinder slid down, then stopped. The black end unfolded and planted small arms on Haidan’s bluish lips. The textured surface writhed, and the rest of the cylinder moved down farther.

  Haidan gagged, his eyes flickering open. The cylinder hissed, then pushed down even farther.

  John sat down and touched the lid of the box. Text appeared on its surface, and John began reading it. Occasionally he tapped the surface and read more. A minute passed. The cylinder hummed, the arms retracted, and it slid the rest of the way into Haidan’s mouth and down his throat. The mongoose-men looking on swore, and John looked up.

  “He’s okay. That should be it,” he said. “Now we wait. Don’t disturb him. By morning, he’ll be a whole different man.”

  Dihana looked at John. “Do you have any more miracles up your sleeve? They’re still shelling us out there.”

  John looked in the direction she pointed. “No. I want to wait out the night until we get Haidan back. We’ll need him.”

  “I’ll wait with you.” Dihana sat down in a nearby chair.

  It was a long night. Dihana spent it wondering what the machine inside Haidan was doing.

  When the sun rose and the men drank coffee with John, Haidan sat up and groaned, clutching his lungs and grimacing.

  Dihana smiled and sat next to him.

  John looked up, then walked over with coffee. “We have priests and Teotl. Now we need to force the Azteca to talk terms to get them back and I need your help.”

  Haidan nodded. He looked at the coffee. “Could I get some of that? And food. I wicked hungry.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Smoke roiled across the trenches in front of the great walls of the city. Mongoose-men and city volunteers occasionally popped their heads over the edges, looking out over pits of never-ending smoldering fires and barbed wire for the next wave of Azteca.

  Two men covered in days of mud, bags under their eyes, and dreadlocks dripping with sweat, helped Haidan down a long tunnel. He could run with the men. It was exhilarating feeling confident enough to be running. He was healed thanks to John. And John’s ship had given them an upper hand. They had priests, a god, and a mystery weapon, though the weapon had been ditched in the sea. But the Azteca didn’t know that.

  The mongoose-men paused twice to disarm traps in the ground meant for incoming Azteca.

  If they were going to see an end to this, Haidan k
new it had to be quick.

  Occasional craters steamed from recent explosions, and several bodies had been stacked up like sandbags outside a trench. Three mongoose-men stood around a warrior-priest who’d walked over the trenches to their side with a white flag. A puffy, bloodied face looked up at Haidan.

  “He refuse to go any further,” one of the mongoose-men grunted. “We had try and make him.”

  Haidan squatted in the mud face-to-face with the Azteca. “What you want?” The chance for a truce, or withdrawal, made him hopeful. But whether this Azteca was here to advance it or not he didn’t know. If this priest wasn’t here to start that process, Haidan had plans for forcing them to the table anyway.

  “A stop to fighting,” the warrior said.

  “You have authority?”

  “Do you? You do not much look like a priest or a leader of any sort.”

  Haidan grunted. The warrior looked thin and hungry. The Azteca hadn’t been resupplied. The mongoose-men had done an able job on destroying anything of use on the route the Azteca had used to get to Capitol City, and Capitol City was a long way from the Wicked Highs.

  The mysterious ship from the sky must have been a hell of a blow, Haidan thought.

  “We got one of you god,” Haidan said. “We could come back for more.”

  “Cenhotl.” And the Azteca listed the names of the captured priests. “Many of our leaders abducted. There is chaos among the remaining.”

  A fine rain pattered in. The night would be a muddy, sloshy one.

  “We need meet and discuss we do next,” Haidan said. “If you don’t start this, I go drag you god to the city wall and torture him.”

  The Azteca paled. “If you are interested in bargaining, then we are. That is why I came here. May I return?”

  Haidan nodded at the mongoose-men. The warrior-priest got to his feet and staggered down the trench. They helped him into the maze of barbed wire, and with a few grunts the Azteca made his way back toward the Azteca line.

  “You think he serious?” one of the mongoose-men asked.

  Haidan shrugged and kept walking back toward the city walls. “We’ll see.”

  A few distant thuds indicated Azteca artillery starting a new barrage.

  The nearest mongoose-man looked up. “Ain’t a good idea for no general be out here—”

  The air above them whistled and the side of the trench exploded.

  Haidan blinked and pulled himself off the ground, a whole half a minute gone from his memory. Blood leaked out of his ears and he had trouble focusing on anything in front of him. In the distance he saw mud flung high into the air from more explosions. Concussions ripped through the ground, thudding his chest, but he heard nothing.

  Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him along. They were yelling at him, but Haidan pointed at his ears.

  Hearing came back as they passed through the tunnel again, the mongoose-men disarming traps. Dirt swirled in the dark air.

  The Capitol City response was an equally deafening thunder from weapons in the trenches and high up on the city walls.

  “A trick?” someone asked.

  Haidan shrugged. “Maybe they really confused and fractured,” he murmured. He needed a moment to sit and sort himself out. “Try to keep any of them asking for truce alive.”

  The shelling got worse, forcing him to hunker down in the tunnel and wait it out with several other mongoose-men. Haidan ate hard, stale bread and drank weak tea and waited while the mud dried to a crust on his boots and pants.

  Haidan was back in Capitol City before the sun kissed the horizon, and by the time half the sky was purple, he had given his orders. He waited on the outer edge of the city walls, looking out over the muddy trenches and craters he’d spent the afternoon in.

  One Azteca priest, groomed, washed, and in full finery, was dragged out along the city wall. His ankles were bound several times over with rope. Several men checked it over, while the priest looked at them all.

  The mongoose-men lifted the proud, defiant Azteca, tied the rope off on a cleat by the walkway, and threw him over the side of the wall.

  Haidan leaned over and watched as the priest reached the end of the rope and recoiled part of the way back up with a scream. He bounced off the walls and swung wriggling in a wide arc from side to side, twenty feet below Haidan. His clothes and feathers hung toward his head, leaving him naked around the waist and legs.

  Men laughed, some spat, others just shook their heads.

  “Wait three hour,” Haidan ordered. “Then throw the next one over.”

  He left the walls.

  It was midnight, and three Azteca priests hung from the walls when the Azteca guns felt silent. They wouldn’t kill their own priests. Haidan smiled.

  By the early-morning hours several of the remaining Azteca leaders had sent notes with runners to the Capitol City trenches asking for a truce.

  Haidan handed a mongoose-man his own prepared letter, with a time, a meeting place, and agreeing to the cease-fire.

  He was tired and hungry. He crawled onto his cot for a brief respite.

  At least it was quiet out. Quiet enough for a somewhat restful sleep. His chest and throat still hurt from whatever John deBrun had done to heal him.

  PART FOUR

  THE BITTER END

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Dihana faced the enemy on the other side of her conference table.

  The enemy dressed in feathers and padded armor, the makeup on his face smeared from sweat. His arms were wiry, and a dark fringe of hair hung almost over his eyes.

  His name was Cotepec. The provisional leader of the Azteca forces, he was a man in a tight spot. It was true he had a larger army, but his men were almost out of food. Haidan’s mongoose-men had done their job well and kept supplies away from the Azteca. His leader was captured, priests were captured, and one of his gods captured. He could press on hoping for victory and face starvation if that gamble failed. He risked the god’s death, and his own priests’ death if he did so.

  He could take the town if he fought just a bit longer. Both Dihana and he knew it. It danced in their eyes when they squared off across the table. But if he allowed his god and its priests to die, he would have failed as well.

  Dihana felt no empathy when she laid those items out in a flat, precise manner.

  He looked up at her. “My people in this city said you would be hard to bargain with.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Maybe, Dihana thought, he expected her to be a hard bargainer … for a woman.

  “You expect any less?” Dihana handed him the papers. “You invaded the land, besieged the city.”

  Cotepec read the documents with care, putting aside each page as he read it. When he finished, he gathered the ten pieces back up in his hands. “You have the upper hand. But we are not defeated. I agree, in principle, that I will take Azteca back to other side of the mountains for the return of our god. But you say you will deliver the god to us when we return to Aztlan. How can you guarantee us this?”

  “You have read the terms, Cotepec.”

  He raised a hand. “What if you keep our god anyway?”

  “We will not.”

  “The Others will want to kill our god. How can we allow this?”

  “You mean the Loa?” Dihana asked.

  “That is what you call them.”

  Dihana took a sip of water, then refilled her glass from the pitcher on a bronze tray on the side of the table. “By airship,” she said.

  “You could crash the airship and claim it was an accident.”

  “How do you suggest we do this exchange?”

  Cotepec laid the papers down. “We understand you already know about the tunnel through the mountain.” Dihana nodded. Haidan had found this out, and John had told her as well. “We will make the switch at the tunnel. It easy for you to defend, and we can take safe control of moving our god back across to Aztlan.”

  Dihana thought about it. “Okay.”

  “Please make the changes.�
� Cotepec handed her a pen. It was, Dihana realized later, the first compromise of many. Fourteen more points and adjustments had to be made before Cotepec would agree to begin decamping and returning through the jungle to get back on the other side of the mountains. It was the final item that shocked Dihana.

  She stared at Cotepec. “I can’t do this. Those are people’s lives. You’ve captured thousands. Their lives are not yours to use as you see fit.” She almost yelled.

  He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “It is the only way I can get my priests to agree to return. They want what they already have. They have to return somewhat victorious, with some honor. It is that or they die here.”

  Dihana felt sick. A dizzy, stomach-clenching sick that made her wonder if maybe dying at the table would be best. “You must give me time to think about it.”

  “I will leave here before the sun sets.” Cotepec tapped the papers. “We either have an agreement then, or I return and restart the siege.”

  “You will starve, your god will die, your priests will die.”

  Cotepec shrugged. “That is not as bad as returning empty-handed for all the other gods. So that decision is not mine to make.”

  “I can’t. God, no, I can’t.” Dihana picked up the papers unsteadily as the Azteca stood up.

  “You save many more than will die here if you agree.”

  Dihana closed her eyes. Clot you, she swore at the Azteca in her head. You and all your bloodthirsty gods. She grabbed the pen and dropped the final page to the table. Her signature was shaky and done quickly. “There.” Her voice cracked.

  “All these points are satisfactory,” Cotepec said. “I will, then, return with one of the priests you hold captive now. We will make preparations to leave.”

  When the door closed behind Cotepec, Dihana slumped against the table and cried. She gave the papers to the ragamuffin outside the door and ordered copies made.