Twig

by wildbow

  She held her arm to one side of her head, the hand at the end of that arm clapped over her ear, and she fired. The blast of the mortar took the breath she’d been holding and shook it loose.

  Teeth grit, she slapped the wooden box away from the top of the stack, tore away the lid, and retrieved the next shot. The metal of the mortar was hot to the touch as she loaded the next round—

  She heard the distant gunshot, followed soon after by another. Again, she hopped onto the fence.

  The sniffer could be on her trail any second. Nearby soldiers might have heard the origin or seen the mortar start on its course. She had no time. No time.

  The idea echoed Mary’s words.

  If only they’d come.

  She looked through the binoculars, to see where the shot had landed, to see how the scene had played out in the wake of it.

  The two soldiers that had been flanking the Infante were on the ground. The side of the building had been torn open, the blast taking out much of the structure. The devastation and fragments of ruined building were scattered around the Infante, even some splinters and dust on him. It hadn’t penetrated the side of the building, hadn’t actually hurt him, where it should have at least bowled him over with the shockwave. His head was turned in her direction.

  Mary and Lillian ran for it, taking the opportunity to go for the doors. Both fired their guns at the Infante as they ran.

  Again. Another shot, with no time to waste. Jessie hopped down, dragging the mortar to one side, changing the angle.

  She fired again, hoping to time it to catch the Infante as he followed them out of the building.

  A third shot. The last of the ones she’d been able to bring with her. Again, she loaded it so she could fire as quickly as possible after glancing at the scene. She worried she wouldn’t have a view of the scene, that intervening buildings would block her. It would mean shooting with a higher risk of hitting Mary as she engaged the noble lord.

  She had prepared the shot and was ready to open fire when she heard the sound behind her.

  Her memory had perfectly transcribed a dozen individual snorts and snuffles like it.

  Barely looking, she hauled the mortar around, hitting the catch that kept it anchored at a set angle. It collapsed, the barrel dropping.

  She didn’t have time to protect her ears as she saw the sniffer dash toward her. It was mid-air when she hauled back on the trigger.

  As such things went, the explosion was such that she was only barely out of the worst of it. The second-worst of it was bad enough to knock her over, to send her glasses flying from her face.

  Overkill, to shoot a warbeast with a mortar and turn it into bloody ruins. It only stood a chance of being sufficient harm for the Infante.

  She didn’t even look for her glasses. Her first three steps saw her traveling in a steep arc, one step north, one step northwest, one step west. She bounced off of a wall. Her vision didn’t focus and her ears rang and the Lambs were in danger.

  Danger enough that Lillian believed it right to shoot herself rather than let the Infante do what he’d planned to do to her.

  Jessie didn’t find her bearings, but fought for them, clawed them forth. She searched her memories for tricks and found little. Similar instances were still too different from this to be any kind of resource.

  This was new ground, such as it was. A desperate road.

  The second shot hadn’t hit the Infante. She wasn’t too surprised. He would have delayed, anticipated it, or listened for the distant sound of the mortar firing before its projectile reached him.

  He was faster than he looked. All power, all force. Jessie was far enough away she couldn’t reasonably feel it, but she imagined the ground shaking with every footfall. He was heavy, and he had no difficulty at all in moving that mass.

  Mary ran and she dragged Lillian behind. It meant that when the Infante reached them, it was Lillian he grabbed.

  Jessie could hear the scream. It was a sound she’d never wanted to hear from her friend, her romantic rival, her fellow bookworm, though she’d never been the bookworm Jamie had been.

  “Taken,” the Infante pronounced. “It is time you all realize you exist at our mercy.”

  Mary aimed her gun, and she opened fire, putting bullets in the Infante’s head, emptying the gun. He had to close his eyes and twist his head to one side, but he barely reacted outside of that.

  “Please,” Mary said. “Please. I’ll lead you to Sylvester.”

  “If you do, it will be because I will it,” the Infante said. “Not in any exchange. I brook no disloyalty to the Crown.”

  Lillian thrashed, fought to escape the one-handed grip on her neck and shoulder. The struggles increased as the Infante lifted her, bringing her to a position where her back was to his chest. His hand moved to cover her nose and mouth.

  “Lord Infante!” Jessie screamed.

  “Jamie Lambsbridge,” the Infante said. He turned slightly, to better face the two girls. “So to speak.”

  “I know—” she started. The words trailed off.

  The angle the Infante stood at gave her a view of Lillian. She could see Lillian’s continued struggle, and she could see Lillian’s eyes roll back in her head. Lillian’s throat distended, then distended more, until it threatened to split down the middle, as if an ordinary-sized man was shoving his full arm down her windpipe. Her body arched, hands clawing at the Infante’s, then at open air.

  “Stop,” Jessie said.

  “I’m most sure that you know how to properly address nobles,” the Infante said.

  Mary took that opportunity to attack, approaching at a run. The Infante’s hand warded her off, at first, but two swift kicks with blades revealed from her boots allowed her to dig the knives in, and use those footholds as points to leap forward. She lunged for his face.

  Treating Lillian as if she weighed nothing at all, he used the hand that held the Lamb’s medic to swat Mary out of the air. She landed on her feet, ready to renew her assault, and stopped short as the Infante let Lillian go.

  Lillian dropped to the ground, still writhing, coughing and gagging in an attempt to dislodge that which had found its way into her throat. Two tendrils like that of an octopus, one large, one small, both encrusted with hornlike growths, were thrashing out of her mouth. The longer one groped at her nostril, looking for a way in and finding it.

  “Lil—” Jessie started.

  The tendrils contorted, becoming squat, rather than long, and in the doing, produced spikes. Sharp points penetrated Lillian’s nostril, cheek, and three points at her throat that Jessie could see. Lillian spasmed in one moment, then went limp and still in the next.

  The recent disorientation of the nearby explosion coupled with the disorientation of this to all catch up with Jessie, dropping her to her knees.

  “Stand up,” Mary said.

  Jessie’s hands shook.

  “Stand up, Jessie,” Mary said. “I know we’ve had recent differences, but this is where we need to be together.”

  The Infante almost ignored them. He held up one hand, and one tendril like that of the horror he’d just unleashed on Lillian was slurping its way back into a slit in his heavy palm. As it disappeared within, the slit closed, indistinguishable from a line in the noble’s hand.

  “Stand up,” Mary said, as if it was a refrain.

  Jessie did.

  “A weapon of war, this,” the Infante spoke. “I keep an assortment, change it out, to remind myself. These ones, like many of the ones I carry, are the sort we rain down on battlefields and unleash on places under siege—”

  “Shut up,” Mary said.

  “—to terrorize, destabilize, and to create openings. Marvelously elegant and nuanced, believe it or not—”

  “Shut up!”

  “—and only one of five weapons I bear with me today.”

  “Shut up, you malignant child!” Mary roared the words. A single tear touched her cheek.

  “Why would I do as you say?�
�� the Infante asked. “What purpose does it serve? What do I gain? I will not stop speaking. I will let you know exactly what happens next. You will try to destroy me, and you will fail. I will make you an example much as I did her.”

  Jessie breathed hard. What were the options? What chance was there?

  “Shall I make you bear the plague, Mary Cobourn? It’s a burden, to carry this one. For every hour I leave it unattended, I must spend an hour under the knife, ensuring it doesn’t get a grip on me. Would you like it if I put you up for display? I could do it so that as it crawls over you, it makes you a diorama. A centerpiece to the greater scene, as Mauer’s God is in Lugh.”

  Mary straightened. She held a knife in one hand, the other hand empty and behind her. A fencer with a foil, but her ‘foil’ was only nine point seven inches long.

  Mary took a step back, adjusting her footing as she did so. As angry as she was, she moved in a measured, practiced way. Jessie had seen the practice.

  “This isn’t a strength of mine.”

  “I know. But I also know you have the capability,” Mary said.

  “I’m not him,” Jamie said. “I’m not my predecessor.”

  “Again, I know that. But there’s no reason to think you couldn’t do it if you wanted to. Let’s try it again.”

  Jamie almost said no. Every part of him hurt, and it was a hurt deep enough that he couldn’t tell if it was the bones or the muscle protesting. His legs had been strained until they were columns of throbbing, and his breath hurt in a ragged way, as if he was breathing in the coldest air—and it wasn’t that cold out.

  But he could see Mary’s expression.

  They’d just lost Gordon, there was a void yawning in the midst of them, and for Mary, this was how she dealt with loss. It was the relentless, mad way she dealt with everything. Working harder, pressing on.

  He was so worried about how Sylvester was doing, about Sylvester’s conversation earlier in the day, a hint to Duncan that he wasn’t satisfied with the status quo.

  There was a rift, a schism, and it looked like the group would split at any moment.

  Better to give Mary what she needed and try to bind them all just a bit closer together, than to help that schism open any further.

  “You can’t expect it to be like it is with Sylvester,” Jamie said.

  “I don’t. It won’t be. But I know that if and when you learn it, you’ll remember it. So let’s learn it.”

  “I’ll need a weapon. Another weapon, anyway,” Jamie said, holding out his hand, as he took a step back, then to the right, matching Mary’s movements.

  Jessie took a step back and to the right. She held out one hand, and saw the flash of the knife moving through the air. She didn’t look up or away from the Infante. She trusted.

  The knife almost bounced out of her hand, the blade nicking the webbing between finger and thumb, but it landed, and she was able to close her fingers around it.

  Mary lunged, and it was the kind of lunge that was meant to do terminal damage. No nonsense, no question. They had rehearsed the steps, but it wasn’t rote. There were paces to go through, but it wasn’t the same attack every time. There were trends but no rules. What was a stab one time would be throwing a knife the next, reeling it back in with a pull on razor wire.

  It was about attack and movement. Never defense, never pausing. Jamie knew to move only because Mary was first to attack. She was more comfortable attacking, deciding that first move and dictating what would follow.

  Jessie moved, trying to maintain a position that would keep the Infante perfectly between them, unable to look at the two of them at the same time. It was a distraction, something that begged a moment’s thought from the opponent while Mary moved in.

  Again, Mary used the boot-knives to penetrate flesh, to scale the Infante as if he were a mountain to be hurdled, positioning herself to attack the face and head—

  He reacted quickly, slapping Mary down before she even got that far.

  Mary would only redouble the assault if Jessie didn’t seize the scant opportunity afforded her. It wasn’t much of an opportunity. A half-second, while Mary was adjusting her footing. Failure to capitalize on this meant only misery, a break in the exercise, a return to the beginning steps, where Mary was on the offensive.

  Jessie attacked. Slashes, cuts. A man this large needed support, and every cut was at the knee, with one chance swipe at the ankle as the Infante raised one foot.

  It was brief, the initial foray meant to only let the Infante know she was present. All to grab attention, to seize it. Almost without having stopped after being struck at, Mary returned to the fray, going low this time, tumbling down into a roll, before striking up, at the Infante’s inner thighs and genitals.

  The memories merged with reality. This was where Jamie grabbed Mary, to put her off balance.

  Jessie grabbed Mary, hauled her to her feet, pulling her up and away as the Infante shifted his footing, kicking and only grazing Mary. As adroit as she was, Mary wouldn’t have successfully gotten out of the way.

  Jamie matched strikes with Mary, again, never pausing, never defending, always either moving or attacking. Jessie did the same. In this, they attacked in concert, two sets of attacks from two directions. The Infante moved to deal with Mary, who was no doubt cutting more effectively, and Jessie redoubled her attack, gripping the knife handle with both hands to add more strength to the cuts.

  It was meditative, it might even have been calming, if the circumstances were different. Pain and fear and desperation flattened out, the frenzied immobility of shock meeting the peaks and valleys of highest and lowest emotion and finding something in between. It was easier to stick to the recitation, the dance they had worked through, Mary’s therapy.

  The problem, then and now, was that Jessie wasn’t a fighter. In this, she was much like Sylvester, dependent on another. The Infante changed tacks, choosing to go after the weaker of the two interlinked individuals, his sights falling on her.

  The moment he turned on her, Mary was on his back, dealing as much damage as she could with her blades. She produced loops of razor wire, and they moved almost impossibly slowly through the air as they approached the Infante’s head, threatening to wrap around his face.

  He struck at Mary, then swiped at the wire, brushing it out of the air and lacerating the back of his hand with the force of the movement and the sharpness of the wire.

  He was strong, and Mary wasn’t invincible. But her technique and skill was such that she could move with the blows. Razor wire connected elsewhere allowed her to haul with one arm, and pull herself slightly out of position. Knives jutting out of the toes of her shoes stabbed into belly and back and allowed her to kick out, move up or step down. In this way, as much as he hurt her, he didn’t remove her from the fight with any one strike.

  Mary hit the ground, rebounded, and was on the offense again, while Jessie focused on movement, on not being in a position where she could be grabbed or struck down. She wasn’t so adroit.

  She maintained her end of the dance, as best as she could.

  His reaching hand was surrounded by loops of razor wire. They tightened around his fingers and palm, and the wire didn’t penetrate the thick skin. He hauled his arm forward, and Mary skidded, skipped, and fought to get her balance.

  That alone wouldn’t have been so bad. But as Jessie maneuvered, pushing herself to move just a little bit further, a little bit faster, a hand gripped her.

  Lillian stood, her body lopsided, as if one side of it was heavier than the other. Her mouth was open, and she coughed, gagged, groping with hands, to seize, scratch with nails.

  Not Lillian’s actions, but the parasite’s.

  It was all the Infante needed. He stepped in, reaching, and Jessie didn’t have the opportunity to slip away before the noble seized her.

  Jessie was lifted clean off the ground. The Infante swatted at Mary again, then held out one hand, palm out, as if one hand was all he needed to keep her at bay, now. H
e glanced down at Lillian, then touched her cheek with two fingers, turning her head by force, so she looked at Mary.

  Lillian took three staggering steps in Mary’s direction, making guttural sounds.

  “Shall I use spiders that stitch you into a cocoon of your own flesh?” the Infante asked. Slits and folds in his arm yawned open as if reflexively answering that question. “No. You wouldn’t remember that one. It wouldn’t hold the same meaning.”

  He shifted his grip, and pressed his hand over Jessie’s nose and mouth.

  The first of the tendrils slithered into her mouth, like a long, wet tongue. It was covered in hard growths, like warts, ulcers, or small horns, and each periodically stabbed and pricked, producing the spikes it would use to no doubt impale her spinal column and get near-permanent leverage in her throat. They struck out at nerves, numbing and paralyzing when and where they made contact, un-numbing and freeing the part as they withdrew. A wet member slithered into her nose, then scraped against her upper lip as the rest of the thing hauled itself deeper into her throat.

  Her throat distended. She couldn’t breathe. It sucked at the air in her lungs and took it against her will, in one end, out the other.

  It angled the spikes to better its grip, to ensure that any ground it gained going in and down was ground it didn’t give up. It numbed and paralyzed to close the throat to coughs, to keep the gag reflex there but unsuccessful.

  She hurtled this way and that as the Infante moved, addressing Mary. She closed her eyes, remembered the dance, the steps taken—

  Jamie set his foot down and exhaustion won out. He staggered.

  Mary, anticipating something else, had to fall on top of him to avoid hurting him.

  In that, Jamie thought of Sylvester, smiled, and moved his own knife toward Mary’s throat.

  She caught his wrist and rolled her eyes.

  The sacrifice play. No—the reaction, allowing the injury to happen. The Sylvester play.

  Jessie remembered what she’d seen Lillian do. The spasm, the stillness.

  She emulated it, body arching, a whole-body flinch. Then—

  She didn’t even have to go any further. The Infante looked her way, curious. In that instant, standing five feet behind him, Mary lashed out.