Twig

by wildbow

  He gave no signal, he said nothing, but all the same, what followed was at his doing. At least in part.

  The neighborhood erupted, turning on the organized rank and file of the Crown. Guns, yes, but from every building came an outpouring of work. I could see it, and I could see the elementary nature of the work that had been done. Experiments. Crude life, and modified life. Stitched. Men and women with weapons who were clearly drugged.

  Yes, this was Mauer’s organization, but it was Fray’s books. In the heart of the Crown States, in the midst of Gomorrah, where the Crown’s hold was questionable to both sides, the rebellion had stirred into a small revolution, taking what had been the Academy’s and shaping it with their own inexperienced hands.

  What followed was pure chaos, and that, to be sure, was my cue to take part.

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  Thicker than Water—14.17

  It was, as battlefields went, a mire for the enemy. An empty square without any buildings in it at the middle, four major roads leading off from it, one from each corner, with tall buildings all around. The Academy was mobilizing from three separate directions; if the columns of soldiers were to meet in the middle, they would have formed a ‘y’, with a very narrow top two branches.

  They didn’t meet in the middle, however. The mob turned on them as they entered the square, and the mass of monsters and crude stitched formed a wall. Countless novice experiments were gunned down as they closed the distance. Soldiers in the front ranks backed away, leaving stitched to face the initial charge.

  The giants at the head of the one group used their shields to bar the way, limiting the initial impact, but the humans in the midst of the experiments had countermeasures at hand. They threw flammable liquids at the giants and the giants’ shields, and the ones that missed landed in the midst of the rank and file of the stitched in uniform.

  The initial push was costly, but it did its work. The stitched on the Crown side had rifles and uniforms, and they were of a reliable stature and quality. But in the opening melee, the lesser experiments on the rebellion side had a slight advantage. They didn’t have guns. They had improvised weapons, sledgehammers, axes reserved for stitched labor, heavier than most ordinary people could heft, and they had picks and shovels.

  It was a strange case, where the Crown stitched were meant to fight people as they kept the peace and went to war, and they were well equipped for the task, but those same guns and bayonets were bad against other stitched and experiments. This particular subset of the rebellion stitched were inferior and equipped with the tools and weapons this rebellion could scrounge up, and in the doing, they were better matched against their enemy than the enemy was against them.

  More accident than intent, I believed.

  The giants, now burning with ever-growing patches of flame, began to push back, forcing the assembled mob back, and giving the Crown stitched and soldiers room to aim and fire their rifles.

  I had a sense of the flow of the battle now.

  I glanced back at Jamie, then signaled.

  You. Stay.

  I. Assist. Back.

  I hesitated, glancing at Shirley.

  Jamie gestured, Watch woman.

  Good enough.

  I measured the movements of the various groups, spotted one group of stitched, all of the same make, in the same style of dress, and followed them. Jamie followed several paces behind, Shirley keeping close to him.

  One of the two giants, hit by what might have been one of Mauer’s noble-killing bullets, toppled. As he did, his weight came down on top of a number of the breakable containers beneath the waterproof covering that draped him. There was a pause before the smoke came rolling out as a thick wave.

  As the smoke swept over a full half of the square, I watched to see who retreated, and who pushed forward. I could see some of the crude experiments flinging themselves forward, modified hounds and vat-grown beasts. None were large, many didn’t seem that much more effective for the alterations made to them, but they had been made aggressive and they were being pointed at the enemy.

  They weren’t deterred by the smoke, and I had to lean on instinct to figure out how the lines were taking shape.

  The billowing smoke obscured the still-standing giant, who held a great shield that was now almost entirely aflame. He was clumsily working at swinging the shield in the general direction of the enemy rank and file while using one hand to try to quash the flame at one of his legs. All he was doing was setting his sleeve on fire. As the smoke grew thicker around him, only the orange flame remained visible, and even that was obscured into a murky glow.

  Glancing back at Jamie, who I could still see fairly clearly, I saw him bending down to pick up a rifle with a bayonet, while he ushered Shirley into cover.

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  He nodded as he partially disassembled the rifle he’d claimed.

  Running past Gordon, I plunged into the smoke, toward the battle lines, careful to use the thicker parts of the rebel ranks as cover, careful to stay low to the ground, moving forward often with both feet and one hand on the ground.

  Gordon had pointed out to me, once upon a time, that the battlefield wasn’t generally a place where rage or justice reigned. No, it was a place of fear. I’d mused before about how this made stitched such a powerful asset on the part of the Crown.

  I could tune out what my eyes were seeing to favor my ears, much as I had when I’d been on the lookout for the Falconer’s raptor. I could listen, use what little I’d retained in short term memory regarding the flow of the battlefield, and trust that some of those basic truisms held.

  The smart enemies would retreat. The stitched would hold firm. The animals that could function without needing to see would attack.

  Claws scratched against the road, moving fast, and I moved out of the way. I bumped into someone, and I made a small snarling sound, moving forward quickly, to suggest I was rebellion-created, advancing toward the enemy, rather than a Crown-made threat.

  The clawed thing joined the fight, and I could hear the grunts and the wordless shouts as the victim was attacked.

  I could hear the shouts, the din of the battlefield, of bullets and calls to retreat and organize.

  I drew near enough to the attacking warbeast that I could make out a general blur of its shape and motion. I felt bits of something strike my face, and I identified them by smell more than by touch. They smelled like preservatives and blood. The finer spray of gore from the attack on the stitched.

  I navigated around the stitched and the attacking beast, into enemy lines. Muzzle flashes told me where other stitched were standing and firing openly in the general direction of the enemy. I stayed low, I used my ears, listened for the grunts, the heavy sound of boot on road, and weaved through their number, getting closer to the flailing giant.

  The shouts, orders, and responses I heard were louder now. I listened intently, moving this way and that to stay out of people’s way, safely ensconced in the thick waves of cloying smoke.

  I could make out the orders that were aiming to keep morale up, and I could make out the orders that were simpler, firm, and far less emotional. Not quite condescending, but speaking to lesser minds.

  Only one of those six voices were regular generals, managing regular troops. The others were looking after the stitched.

  I was mentally modeling the battlefield, paying special mind to the way the larger groups were moving. The enemy commanders were visualizing the battlefield as they had last seen it—a lot of dumb, brutish and crude enemies crashing against the front line.

  They weren’t expecting an infiltrator in their ranks.

  I moved around one cluster of soldiers who were huddled together, talking in tense tones, as much to remind each other where they were as it was to maintain sanity and share commentary on the goings-on.

  I reached the first of the commanders, and found that he was atop a vehicle. The wagon provided cover to the front and sides, while giving him a wi
ndow to see out and shout out commands to the stitched. From the smell of it, I knew it was occupied by several stitched guards. Reinforcements or helpers.

  “Hold firm!” the man called out, sounding like a schoolteacher instructing small children. “Hold fast! Stay forward! Aim your rifles! Fire!”

  I saw the light of the individual rifles firing.

  The wagon wasn’t moving—moving would have been silly, given the lack of visibility. That meant I was free to climb the side of the wagon, very slowly and very carefully, so as not to scuffle or shake the thing.

  High above, from a window overlooking this part of the battlefield, something fired down at the Crown forces. Bigger than a gun, it didn’t fire a singular shot, but something scattered. I could hear individual pellets or flechettes striking the side of the wagon, the road, and other things nearby.

  I felt the sting as one caught me in the back of the head. Another in the lower back, where it produced a feeling like a spring coming free of the mechanism, or a guitar string snapping.

  Mid-climb, I tensed, freezing, holding back all cries of pain and surprise.

  I reached up to the back of my head, only recently stitched up, and I felt the site of the wound. As if I was popping a boil, I squeezed what might have been a small metal fragment free of my scalp. It fell between my collar and my neck.

  The pain belatedly followed the sting in my lower back, spreading explosively along that plane of muscle and tissue, echoing into the surrounding area. I could compare it to being hit in the kidney; Gordon had done that often enough in our early sparring sessions. But where being punched in the kidney made it feel like I was venting my entire stomach’s contents out my ass in one brutal blast, except into my midsection instead, this was a simpler, more muscular kind of pain.

  All around me and in the wagon I was climbing, others were cursing, swearing. Stitched were reacting as they were supposed to react, turning to face the direction they’d been hit from.

  “Hold!” the man in the wagon hollered. “Prior facing!”

  Trying to steer them back on course. If they started turning around or reacting in the midst of this smoke, getting them all facing the right direction would be like herding cats.

  The second of the cannons up in the building, aimed out of a window or up on a balcony, opened fire. This one wasn’t aimed fully at us, but at the ranks behind. We weren’t the focus of the blast, but we were at the stray edges of it. I heard the sound of metal hitting the side of the wagon, wooden panels reinforced with metal strips.

  “Watch for the next one. Take aim,” the man in the wagon ordered, in that tone reserved for stitched. “Sight them and open fire.”

  “Sir,” I heard the voices reply. The clumsy tongues of stitched soldiers.

  I continued my climb, more slowly as I gripped the top edge of the wagon’s side.

  The third grapeshot cannon fired down on the street, this one aimed even further back, with no chance of catching us in the midst of it.

  “Sight and fire!” the man in the wagon called out.

  The stitched aimed and fired up at the side of the building. The rifles flashed with each shot, and in the gloom, it afforded me a glimpse of them and their faces. I could see my target, within arm’s reach.

  The man, middle-aged, with an impressive beard and mustache, turned away from the sound and flash of the rifles, one hand covering one ear. In the doing, he fixed his eyes on me. Peering through the smoke, he could no doubt see the rough appearance of an older boy’s face staring up at him.

  Hooking one leg over the top of the wagon, I reached out with one hand to grab his collar, pulling him toward me while I thrust my knife out in his direction.

  He wasn’t watching for an attack. His hands went out in my direction, nothing more than a push. My grip on his collar and the pull only helped keep me from being shoved down toward the ground. My stab of the knife found its way to his throat.

  I felt the strength go out of his arms, and I stabbed again, repeatedly, being careful not to stab my hand as I gripped his collar.

  When he collapsed down onto the floor of the wagon, I landed on top of him. I saw the shadows of a recess in the wagon, and I rolled off him and toward it, looking up at the stitched.

  Their eyes were on their target as they systematically reloaded and fired in the general direction of the grapeshot cannons.

  I quickly ran my hands over the man, found his pistol and slipped it into my belt, and then took to searching the wagon.

  A loose crate of ammunition.

  I picked it up, slipped behind the stitched who were lined up at one side of the wagon, and made my way toward the giant, who was still fighting, his shield held high as a barrier against the noble-killing bullets.

  My back hurt where I’d been struck by the second pellet, and the pain was particularly pronounced as I hefted the crate. It wasn’t large, small enough to be tucked under one arm by a larger man or stitched, but the contents were heavy and dense.

  As the giant struggled, hefting its shield, Crown soldiers, wagons, and stitched had formed a line in front of it. It was being made to stay still and given a wide berth while the smoke cleared up. Wouldn’t do to have it trample friendlies.

  Getting closer to it meant that I was more visible, the smoke around me tinted orange and red by the flames that lit up the still-burning shield, the burning fuel mingling with rainwater to dribble down and form burning puddles on the ground. But eyes weren’t particularly on me.

  I heaved the crate, letting go. It hit the ground and slid along the road, skidding through oil-slick puddles, hopefully stopping somewhere beneath the giant’s flaming shield. It made more noise than I’d anticipated: heads turned. I was already moving away, running as quietly as I could toward the largest concentration of Crown forces.

  There were shouts, questions, but in the din and the blind chaos, nobody singled me out.

  I was halfway back to Jamie by the time the box of bullets caught fire. The effect wasn’t pronounced—hardly a rollicking explosion, but when the fire dribbled down off of the shield and onto the box, the contents were partially gunpowder. The bullets did ping this way and that, at a considerably lower velocity than they might have moved if they’d been pushed out the barrel of a rifle.

  I’d hoped to get the giant’s handler, where possible, or disrupt the giant stitched in much the same way the scattershot had disturbed the lesser stitched. Failing either, I’d hoped the crate of bullets would go up in flame and the resulting explosion, small or big, would draw attention.

  I achieved my second goal, in spades. The flying bullets must have struck home near the giant’s left foot, because it shifted its weight dramatically, stumbling, eliciting shouts and screams. It brought its shield around as a kind of crutch, slamming it into the ground to the extent that I could feel it, twenty-five paces away.

  Damaged by fire, the shield cracked and creaked, threatening to fold in two.

  It didn’t come to that. Distant rifles fired, and the giant toppled violently, hands letting go of the shield as the giant crumpled to the ground.

  Higher up the building, the grapeshot fired again. I could hear the commotion as a soldiers made their way into the building proper. Fighting their way up.

  The smoke wasn’t getting much thicker as a result of the second giant falling. It looked as if it had been the one to lob most of the containers up to this point, and thus it had less to break.

  Diverting forces into the building, stopping, and losing the momentum of the giant had had an impact. The stitched I moved past on my way back to Jamie were disoriented, without the leadership of the man who’d been in the wagon. I had little doubt someone else would recognize the need and step up, once the smoke was gone.

  For now, however, it posed another obstacle for me. The rebel stitched and beasts were pressing forward, using the gap that had been made by disorientation. It wasn’t a particular organized attack, not clever or refined or anything like that. Dumb stitched and du
mb beast hurled themselves forward, saw a weakness, and attacked, hacking, biting, and tearing past whatever was in their way.

  In the thinner smoke, here, I could make them out, large muscular stitched fighting with thinner ones with crude weapons, or wrestling with dogs that had exoskeletons, and things that looked like a cougar had been starved for two weeks with the resulting mass stretched out to twice the height and length, a spindly, clawed, fanged thing, swiping at the stitched in its way, darting back, lunging in again to swipe again.

  I was in their way, and I doubted either beast nor brute could discern me as a friend, in the midst of this.

  I moved closer to the building, looking for any window I could enter, in hopes of finding a shortcut around to the back of the battle lines.

  A rifle fired, and the dog with the exoskeleton fell. It fired again, and the stitched the dog had been chewing on tumbled to the ground as well.

  I ran through the gap.

  “Thought that was you,” Jamie said.

  I grinned, panting.

  “Been busy?”

  “Wanted to get more of the people guiding the stitched, but… no. Too spread out, too time consuming, too dangerous, I’m hurt.”

  “You’re speaking in short fragments. How hurt?”

  I turned, lifting up my shirt.

  “I can barely see,” he said.

  “Grapeshot pellet. I don’t think it hit anything vital, but it doesn’t feel good.”

  “Okay. We’ll get that looked after, after.”

  I nodded. I looked at Shirley, who was huddled in an alcove. “How are you finding your first battlefield?”

  “Terrifying,” she said.

  She reminded me of Lillian in that moment, and in the moment immediately following that thought, I badly wanted to hug her.

  In the moment following that, I felt mingled loss at Lillian’s absence and frustration at the way things had gone.

  “You’re more terrifying like this than you were standing on that rooftop, acting like you were out of your mind, Sylvester. Because that, at least, it was something I could almost understand. But you seem even further away when you’re in a place where people are dying left and right and you barely even flinch.”