Black Rain

by Matthew B. J. Delaney

  On the sidelines, one of Sharp’s assistants waved a yellow flag overhead, the signal to descend the castle wall and attack on foot.

  “We’re going to the ground,” Sky King ordered, and a dozen ladders went over the side. The ground seethed with fire far below them, a terrible storm of screaming men and burnt flesh. Jack and the others began their descent down the ladders. From the ground came the sound of pulled bows. Arrows fired from below hummed past Jack’s head, snapping violently as they struck the wall. Some of them hit their mark, burying deep into flesh as Synthates screamed and fell from the ladders. Finally, Jack reached the ground and unsheathed the long sword Night Comfort had given him.

  He ran over the hot ground, its surface like slow-burning charcoal. As he moved, he swung the long sword, feeling it meet flesh and armor. Screams and cheers surrounded him, the Braves still on the wall above shouting their encouragement.

  The enemy was less resilient than they had seemed from atop the wall. Fallen Raiders were everywhere, and soon Jack had nothing left at which to aim his sword.

  Sky King held his sword up, first toward the cheering crowd and then across the highlands to the Baltimore castle. Sparks and smoke swirled around him as he stepped over the burning timber and past Jack and Regal Blue. “Nothing but death awaits them here.”

  Yet as Jack watched the burning ram, doubt grew in his mind. Something was wrong. Where were the archers? The foot soldiers? Once the ram had battered down the castle door, there would have been no one to follow the attack. No archers to give cover. This seemed less of an attack, and more of a . . . what? Suddenly the word burst on his mind.

  A diversion.

  This wasn’t an attack at all. It was a distraction.

  Sky King and the rest of the Braves were still going over the Baltimore dead, checking for survivors and gathering the weapons of the fallen. Jack ignored them and looked back across the field. The grass stretched out before him, still and dark. Much of the crowd was up from their seats, stretching in the lull of battle. Jack, watching, saw the usual lines of people heading for the bathrooms and the concessions. Nothing there.

  As his eyes moved down from the seating, they passed over the pools of water spaced evenly around the castle. Bits of ash and dust clung to the surface, moving in slow swirls around each other like dancers across a polished floor. Then the water rippled once, a perfect circle that spread from the center of the pool, ballooning out and out until it hit the rounded edge. Then again, the same slow wave.

  “The water ripples!” Jack said. “They’re coming in tunnels!”

  Sky King looked at Jack and turned his head to gauge the water’s speed. The crowd sensed the air of oncoming menace and returned eagerly to their seats.

  “Up the ladders,” someone called out.

  “No time,” Sky King said. “They’ll be here too soon. Everyone, backs against the wall.”

  Obeying his command, the Braves moved quickly to the castle, their swords ready. The battering ram continued to burn, throwing ash into the air. The Baltimore dead lay around them, flaming arrows sprouting from their flesh like candles.

  The spectators continued to wait expectantly. Jack gave a second’s thought to them, with their beer and hot dogs, and, if only for an instant, remembered what it had felt like up there, with no blood in his nostrils, no soot coating his tongue. He imagined what they must look like from the other side of the barrier. The hard plastic seats, cold plastic cup of beer against the hand, and in the distance a castle, a group of Synthates standing and waiting for an attack.

  A geyser of soil exploded into air.

  Raiders, soiled black and screaming horribly, flooded out of the gaping hole. Some of them carried long ladders and raced to place them against the wall.

  The Braves launched a frantic march to meet the dirt-smeared enemy. Jack joined his teammates, dodging arrows raining down from their archers on the castle walls. A Raider stabbed at Jack with a short blade. Jack swiftly pivoted and the blade caught him on the side of the ribs. He butted the Synthate with his elbow, drove him back, then swung the great sword over his head and caught his assailant full in the chest.

  Around him were the distorted shapes of men, their faces emerging from the darkness. And there was Jack himself, slashing and screaming for his life.

  CHAPTER 38

  High above the field, Night Comfort watched the Game. Her perch was one of the few Synthate-only areas, where servers and culinary workers prepared food. Behind her the kitchen was in full swing, plates of food being readied for the naturals below. She hated seeing Synthates killing each other for their masters’ entertainment, yet had to know what happened to Jack.

  From behind her came a voice.

  “I didn’t think you would come.”

  She turned as Arden approached.

  “Nor did I,” she said. “But I was wrong.”

  He joined her at the window and together they looked down at the grim spectacle. From this height, it had been difficult to find Jack, but he was down there still. And alive, she could feel it.

  She noticed Arden staring at her. “You have a plan to get him out?”

  “Yes, there’s a plan.” He checked his watch. “I don’t have much time.”

  He looked at her, hesitated, then said, “When this is over, when Maggy is well again, could you see yourself coming back?”

  Night Comfort responded sadly. “Don’t ask me that. I don’t want to have to say no to you.”

  In the beat before Arden spoke, the sound of the crowd cheering filled the entire stadium.

  “Yeah, well . . . maybe you’d think about it?”

  “Maybe.” She gave a faint smile. “But now you should go.”

  On the field, Sky King turned to Jack. “It’s not over yet.”

  Jack regarded the wound he’d sustained, a gash just below his armor. Blood was flowing freely down the side of his abdomen. From the crowd, a deep moan began to swell. A cadre of forty Baltimore Raiders ran out onto the field to reinforce the line. Climbing up their ladders, they reentered the safety of their castle’s bulwarks.

  Jack wiped his hand, now slick with blood, against the front of his armor. From behind the enemy castle, he heard the slow creak of timber. Slowly, emerging from the Baltimore castle, a five-story wooden structure came into view, pulled by twenty Synthates. A long single arm the size of a telephone pole extended out from the base, where rings and rings of leaden weights hung past a pivot point on the opposite end. Wooden wheels screeched in resistance.

  Jack peered at the device. “What is that?”

  “Trebuchet,” Sky King said.

  Slowly, the great throwing arm began to descend as forty Synthates in unison heaved ropes attached to giant pulleys. Overhead the flags snapped in anticipation as, foot by foot, the timber arm was lowered and then locked in place by thick chains. Soon, its ammunition would also be in place.

  The Braves ascended their own ladders once more.

  “It has been decided then,” Regal Blue said. “We are to die today. They give them the trebuchet. We can’t fight such odds.”

  In the distance, a giant clay pot the size of a boulder was being fitted inside the trebuchet’s sling. Someone moved forward with a torch, touching it to the black oil inside the vessel, and immediately eager flames erupted. Quickly the blaze grew inside its cradle.

  The command to prepare themselves echoed through the Braves’ ranks. Jack ducked below the stone parapet. Across the sideline, he saw Baltimore’s coach holding his hand in the air. A second later, it fell. The firing pin was pulled and the trebuchet’s arm sprung forward, its massive counterweights descending and propelling the flaming meteor up. The spectators caught their breath, the missile highlighted against the night sky.

  “Here it comes!”

  Jack pressed himself as tightly as he could against the stone wall. There was a rushing sound of air before the moment of impact. The pot exploded, spraying flaming oil on the New York defenders. Jack’s face wa
s scorched by burning air. Then Sky King wrenched him away from the heat’s growing intensity.

  The entire far side of the Braves’ castle was engulfed in flames. Oily black smoke clouded the sky, the crowd barely visible through its swirling, angry curtain. Synthates leaped off the walls, jumping for the pools below, the water hissing as it swallowed up fire and scorched flesh.

  The trebuchet arm began lowering again for another attack, another lethal missile placed inside the sling.

  Calls of “Down!” erupted through the Braves ranks, as the combustion spread.

  “Evacuate the castle!” Sky King ordered. “Spread out on the field!”

  Ladders once again were dropped over the castle walls and Jack found himself sliding down one. His footing slipped and then he was falling. The ground rushed up to meet him and drove the wind from his lungs. He lay on the grass, stunned, the flaming structure above him, the orange and red perversely beautiful against the night sky. Then he was up on his feet, putting distance between himself and the castle, spreading out from his fellow Braves. Sky King turned to the sideline and pointed his sword toward Coach Sharp.

  “Give us more men. We can take the castle now!” he shouted.

  The fans also screamed for reinforcements. Sharp looked at Sky King, before, slowly, he turned his back to the Braves.

  No one was coming to help them. A decision had been made. The battle was already lost and no reinforcements would be sent in to be killed. Simple strategy. The season was long. Don’t waste all your Synthates in one battle.

  Jack heard a cry from the far side and saw the enemy castle gates slowly opening. The portcullis was being raised, and from the opening Raiders in orange and black were running toward them. Baltimore was attacking. They were trying to take the field of battle. They intended to kill them all.

  Sky King’s shoulders sagged. He turned toward Jack. “I will kill for them, but I will not die. You leave tonight?”

  “We try.”

  “Then I’ll try with you.”

  The Raiders onslaught was closing quickly. Another flaming cauldron broke against the walls, spreading a vertical cascade of fire.

  Sky King looked slowly up at the Baltimore Synthates rushing them. “It may be too late.”

  Jack looked around the field. His teammates were massing a defensive line in front of the burning castle. Smoke was everywhere, choking and burning the eyes of every battling Synthate. There were no choices, only the imperative to struggle on, to defend, to kill or be killed.

  Then he saw something.

  “The tunnels. Baltimore’s tunnels. They lead directly back. We must try to take them,” Jack said.

  In the midst of chaos, Jack found Regal Blue and pulled him back from the front. More smoke had filled the battlefield, obscuring everyone in thick clouds. Baltimore swept into the Braves, the smoke filling with clanging metal. In the chaos, Jack, Regal Blue, and Sky King made their way to a tunnel opening.

  The Raiders had come up from the earth through a hole about five feet wide. Taking the torch from Sky King, Jack waved it down into the hole, seeing only dirt and the corpse of an enemy Synthate, three arrow shafts protruding from the front of his chest. Jack jumped down into the hole. The tunnel loomed up before him.

  “Move quickly,” Sky King said from above.

  The walls of the passageway were smooth and symmetrical. Too perfectly formed. Synthates with shovels could not have done this. The construction crew must have come through here yesterday and dug it out with heavy equipment. All the Raiders had been required to do was dig the last few feet.

  Jack set off down the tunnel, the torch alternately sputtering and blazing in his hands. Sky King and Regal Blue followed, keeping watch behind them as they went. They could hear the sounds of fighting overhead and clumps of dirt fell from the ceiling. Jack feared the roof might collapse, but then the battle noises faded as they moved further on.

  Their route stretched across the entire battlefield, almost two hundred yards in length. They covered the distance with increasing speed. Ahead was a single square of light cut in the earth above. Jack turned back to his companions, and then, holding a finger to his lips, he extinguished his torch in the dirt.

  They crept toward the square of light until they were beneath the opening. They were inside Baltimore’s castle. Stretching above him were its black stone walls. Cautiously, he raised his head through the opening. High on the castle walls, three Raiders stared out across the field, watching the battle.

  Jack ducked back down.

  “Three guards,” he whispered. “Up top.”

  Jack eased himself up and out of the hole, then crouched. Inside the castle, the framework of the walls was visible. There were pools of water and a large oil pump just to the right of the gatehouse. The three guards atop the wall continued to look out toward the field. Their backs were turned as Sky King and Regal Blue followed Jack.

  Keeping low, he crept along the inside wall.

  “Where now?” Sky King whispered.

  Jack scanned their surroundings. Nearby a metal grating covered another hole in the ground. He pointed and they crept forward. Regal Blue kept his longbow out, an arrow notched and aimed upward toward the guards.

  A lock on the grate came apart under Jack’s sword, the noise of the battle masking the sound of steel on steel. Sky King lifted up the grate and set it aside. They looked down into the opening.

  This time the walls were slick rock, a shaft sliding down about seven feet before bending back underneath the battlefield and off toward the harbor. The trio lowered themselves down and began to move again. As they proceeded, moving as rapidly as possibly, the men heard voices ahead of them in the blackness.

  Jack gripped his sword. The voices had to be off somewhere to their right in an adjacent tunnel. To their relief, the voices faded away as they got closer. The Raiders must be moving in the opposite direction. Silence had enveloped them when suddenly they reached a break in the tunnel. Open space extended out indefinitely in front of them. Faintly they could hear the sound of running water. With their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they saw they were coming into a Maglev track.

  They’d reached one of the line’s tunnels as it moved from the island onward to Lower Manhattan. The track passed just below where they stood.

  A large spotlight flashed on, blinding them.

  A figure stepped from behind the spotlight and then dimmed the light. He was a slender natural with a gold NYPD detective shield around his neck. He held his hand up. “My name’s Detective Dwayne Sanders. I work with Arden. Let’s get going. There’s not much time.” He held a small, gun-shaped device in his hand, pausing as he saw Sky King and Regal Blue. “There was only supposed to be one.”

  “The plan’s changed,” Jack said.

  Sanders shook his head. “Not for me it hasn’t.”

  “My friends come out with me. Or I don’t leave. Understand?”

  After a long moment, Sanders finally shrugged. “Okay. As I said, there isn’t much time. Give me your arm.”

  Without waiting for Jack to comply, he pressed the gun-shaped device into the underside of Jack’s wrist.

  “What are you doing?” Jack asked.

  “We have to remove your tracking device.” Sanders pressed the trigger. Immediately metal prongs circled Jack’s wrist as a needle jabbed his skin. Further back down the tunnel came the sound of voices and a flash of light. Sky King turned toward them. “We’ve got company.”

  The pain spread down Jack’s arm as Sanders worked to remove the tracking chip. Jack could feel the needle as it probed the tissue. Regal Blue and Sky King were poised now in positions of defense. Torchlight flickered against the stone surface, and Jack saw a small band of Raiders approaching. Sky King loosed an arrow, catching one in the chest and felling him. The Raiders stopped and spread out quickly in the tunnel.

  In the distance, Jack heard the whir of the Maglev train approaching. Sanders had begun to sweat as he worked the extracting device
over Jack’s arm. There was a sharp pain and Jack saw a small chip being pulled, finally, from beneath the skin.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  Sanders nodded. He placed his trophy inside a small metal case.

  “The case shields the chip from being tracked. Later we’ll plant it on one of the Synthate dead. They’ll assume you were killed during the battle.”

  The rumble of the train grew louder. At tunnel’s edge, Sky King and Regal Blue continued to exchange fire with Baltimore. Sanders looked at them, then at the approaching beam of the Maglev.

  “Your friends,” Sanders said, “had better hurry.”

  “I’m not leaving without them.”

  Jack drew his sword and ran back. Sky King turned toward him. He grimaced in pain, and Jack saw an arrow protruding from his right thigh.

  “No!” Sky King shouted. “There’s no time!”

  Jack shook his head. “We go together.”

  “Tonight, you go alone. We’ll hold them as long as we can.”

  Further down the tunnel, more Raiders appeared. Too many to fight. Sanders tugged Jack’s shoulder. “It’s time,” he said. “It’s now or not at all.”

  “Go.” Regal Blue echoed Sky King.

  Regal Blue clasped Jack’s hand, and then Jack turned and ran toward the Maglev line.

  “The train will stop for twelve seconds. No more than that,” Sanders said. He threw a bag toward Jack. “Clothes in there. Put them on.”

  Inside the bag were heavy work pants and a shirt, as well as a battered hardhat and boots. Jack stripped off his armor and began changing. The Maglev train pulled along the tracks underneath them, its brakes screeching as it rolled to a stop. “Go now,” Sanders said. “Jump. Get inside the last car. Arden’s meeting you there.”

  With a last look back at Regal Blue and Sky King, he jumped. The roof of the train was slick, and his momentum caused him to slide out toward the edge. His legs lifted off the side of the train, and for a moment his body dangled in the air. Then his hands and fingers found a safety lamp affixed to the car’s side, and his body jerked to a stop. His knees struck the side of the car and new pain jolted through him.