The Imposters of Aventil

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “But you’ve got me?”

  She looked down at him and winked. “I’ve got you.”

  Then an arrow went into her chest. Then another. And another.

  Colin found himself shouting something he never thought he’d say in his whole life.

  “Call the Constabulary!”

  Another arrow sang down at him from the window, and he dove behind the fallen bodies of Sotch and Ockie.

  “Rutting blazes!” Ockie coughed out. “What—”

  “Stay down,” Colin said. “Let’s get the carriage over here.”

  “But she—”

  Colin didn’t give him a chance to finish. He leaped up, shouting to Kiggy, “Flat the rutting street!” The crowd was still far too thick for the carriage to get through.

  Kiggy was still standing like a rabbit in a lamp, but Sella was on point. She drew out a knife. “Clear it out, gawkers! Burn your shoes!”

  The sight of a blade made most of the crowd scream and run. Fascinating that arrows and dead bodies hadn’t done the same. They screamed bloody for the sticks to come, but none had showed yet. Colin wanted them here, he wanted them to iron up that fake Thorn. This blighter going to the Quarry would put an end to plenty of Veranix’s troubles, and with that, his own.

  “Hey, fraud!” he shouted, throwing his arms open wide. “I thought you wanted to play with a Prince!”

  The response was another arrow. Colin jumped out of the way, but not as quick as he ought to have. The fletching grazed his arm, slicing a gash right on his rose.

  Colin drew a knife and threw it, but the fake Thorn was too far, too high. It hit the window frame and stuck there.

  “This is hardly fair, Prince,” the fake shouted, drawing out another arrow. Colin could see only four left in his quiver. Maybe he could draw all the shots, keep any other Prince from getting hit. Sella had made a path for the carriage, which was rolling up to Ockie and Cabie. She ran over to Ockie, but the fraud took aim at her. The arrow went right in her leg, but she didn’t drop. Instead, she yanked it out with a shout, and then pulled Sotch’s body up off of Ockie.

  Damn girl must have half the sew-up’s doph in her right now.

  “That the best you got, fraud?” Colin shouted again. He held up his arm. “You don’t want to go for the stars?”

  “The Thorn would be happy to kill you, Prince,” the fraud called back. Before he got his next arrow in place, arms wrapped around him. Ment, his head blood-soaked, was about to crush him like a grape.

  A dead fake Thorn would suit Colin just fine.

  “Move, Kiggy, move,” he snapped. Kiggy helped load Ockie and Sotch’s body into the carriage, and then pushed Sella into it as well. Colin scooped up Cabie—still wasn’t sure if she was alive—and put her in it as well.

  “Go, go,” he shouted to the driver as he shut Kiggy in with the rest. “Get them safe.”

  The driver didn’t question it, spurring his horses.

  Colin looked back up to the window, but it hadn’t gone well for Ment. The fake Thorn jabbed his arrow into Ment, and he had lost his grip. The fraud pulled the arrow out and then put it in Ment’s eye. Ment fell back, but managed to grab the fake’s bow as he went down, wrenching it out of his hands.

  Colin sailed another knife up to the window, and this time got a piece of the fake.

  “You, still?” the fraud said, turning his attention.

  “We’re not done, fake.”

  Whistles pierced the air, and a couple sticks were running over. Colin kept his last knife in its sheath, hands away from his body, as the two of them closed. Both trained their crossbows at the fake Thorn in the window.

  “Stand and be held!” they both shouted.

  “Can’t oblige,” the fraud said, and with a flick of his wrist a plume of colored smoke poured out of his vest. The sticks both fired, but if they hit anything, Colin couldn’t tell. In a moment, the smoke cleared, and the fake Thorn was gone.

  One of the sticks turned on Colin. “What the blazes is going on, Prince?”

  “I was attacked!” Colin said, keeping his hands high.

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “Thorn’s going after everyone, it seems,” the other stick said.

  “Give me a good reason not to iron you and drag you to the stationhouse,” the first stick said, grabbing Colin by the front of his shirt.

  More whistles pierced the air. Fire Call. Yellowshield call. Panic Call. Several blocks away, but a lot of them.

  “Because you’ve got better things to do, stick,” Colin said.

  The stick frowned, but with a glance at his partner he let Colin loose and ran off.

  The sew-up came out of his office, coughing and wheezing. “What are you sinners doing up there?”

  “Never you mind, doc,” Colin said, grabbing the man by the scruff of the neck. “Come with me. You’re earning your keep tonight.”

  At half past eight bells, Minox went searching through the stationhouse for Jace. He had already observed how lax the Aventil Stationhouse had been on regulations, and the engagement of cadets was no exception. Strictly speaking, cadets were students in schooling at the stationhouse, and they were supposed to spend no more than eight hours each day on duty, and half that time was to be dedicated to study and training. The other half was to fulfill duties of squad support.

  Captain Holcomb seemed to treat all the cadets as underpaid footpatrol, clerks, and whatever other use he could find. Minox had long since suspected this, given Jace’s typical accounts of his days, though he also presumed that Jace had chosen to push his duties out of his enthusiasm and loyalty to Lieutenant Benvin.

  But the proof was in the Cadet Room itself. Other than the daily sign-in book, there was little sign of regular use. Some parts of the room had a rather thick layer of dust.

  “Something you need, specs?” an old clerk asked him as he looked around the Cadet Room.

  Raising any sort of fuss over this stationhouse’s habits was counterproductive, and could actively hurt Jace’s career before it got properly started. That was the last thing Minox wanted, despite finding the conditions of this house appalling.

  “Looking for a cadet.”

  “Most of them went home hours ago, or they might have been roped into street patrol. You need some sort of errand?”

  “I should have been more clear. I’m looking for a specific cadet, Jace Welling.”

  “Oh, Jace. Good kid, even if he’s got his head puffed up with that Left’s ‘special squad.’” The clerk shook his head and went over to the sign-in book. “He ain’t checked out today.”

  “I had already determined that. You have an issue with Lieutenant Benvin’s squad?”

  “Most folk do. What’s it to you?”

  Minox raised an eyebrow. “I’m here to investigate the attack on Lieutenant Benvin. That ‘most folk’ have an issue with the man is quite relevant.”

  “Pff,” the clerk said, and wandered off as if this were a sufficient explanation.

  Minox was about to call him back when a bell rang out through the stationhouse. It wasn’t a signal or protocol he was familiar with back in Inemar. He went out to the main work floor.

  “What’s the situation?”

  He was given a strange regard by the floor sergeant—not surprising given he was an unfamiliar inspector—but the man answered. “Word hit that there’s a row on Clover. So we’re rolling out the lockwagons and making a sweep.”

  “Clover?” A few blocks away. He didn’t remember the details of which gangs congregated there. “A ‘row’ is a specific term you use for gangs fighting each other, yes?”

  “What are you, simple?” the sergeant asked. “Get out of the way.”

  Minox didn’t respond before the sergeant brushed past him. He was about to rebuke the sergeant—most of the people in this house ne
eded a lesson in respecting rank—when he recognized a different person going out the main door. He made pursuit.

  “Officer Pollit!” he shouted as he went out into the street. Pollit turned on his heel, walking backward to not stop moving while looking at Minox.

  “Something I can do for you, specs?”

  “I would hope,” Minox said, jogging forward to match pace with Pollit. “I was hoping to find Jace. He hasn’t signed out, and I had no luck in the places I expected him.”

  Pollit shook his head. “That kid is a whip, I’ll tell you. Should do you proud.”

  “He is quite diligent in his duty, but I would think he should go home. Cadets should not—”

  “My cadet year, I was always in before the captain and the cadet commissar, and didn’t leave until they did.”

  Minox nodded. “I’ll confess similar behavior. Something our father instilled in us. Even so, I should be the responsible authority and make sure he comes home with me.”

  Pollit chuckled. “Right. All of you live under one big roof. Must be something.”

  “I should—”

  “Specs, we got a brawl over on Clover. Run with me or walk away, but it’s business time.”

  Pollit turned back front and went into a sprint. Minox sighed and followed suit. He had promised to be home, barring crisis. A brawl between two gangs on the open street while civilian crowds filled the neighborhood certainly qualified as one.

  “Is there any chance that Jace is in the thick of this brawl?”

  “Knowing him, absolutely.”

  That did not give Minox any sense of relief.

  Pollit stopped to catch his breath a block away from Clover and Vine. “What are we heading into?” Minox asked.

  “This is a we, specs?”

  “I haven’t signed out,” Minox said.

  “Sorry. Just most of our specs, they wouldn’t bother with—”

  “I am not them. What can we expect?”

  “It’s bad enough they’re bringing in the wagon. We’re about to hit where the Kickers and the Toothless Dogs butt heads. Corner of Clover and Vine has been a contention with them, and the Knights claim it’s theirs as well.”

  “At some point I’m going to have to make a study into gangs making claims of territories,” Minox said. He drew out his crossbow and checked that it was loaded.

  “You don’t got that in Inemar?”

  “Not with the same formality. What’s our strategy?”

  Pollit started moving again—brisk pace without running. “Honestly, keeping the civs safe is probably more important than ironing a few gang boys. Some good whistle blasts should make some of them scatter. Push in, look for injured, make a hole for the Yellowshields. Crack the skulls of anyone who keeps making trouble.”

  They reached the corner, where a dozen or so young men were brawling in the intersection. More of note was the flaming carriage that had crashed through the tallest building on the corner. The building was already afire and beginning to collapse.

  Minox’s instinct was to blow a whistle blast he rarely had used or heard—one that he doubted most people knew how to respond to—the Evacuation Call. The building was going to fall, and people needed to get out of the way before they were crushed.

  “Sticks!” one of the brawlers yelled. His fight partner took advantage of his distraction and knocked him down. Minox took aim and fired his crossbow at that boy. The blunt-tip struck him in the chest, sending him down.

  Pollit blew his whistle and charged into the brawl. Minox was about to follow when there was a hand on his shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” It was Jace.

  “I was searching for you.”

  “I saw you leave the station with Pol. You shouldn’t—”

  “Neither should—”

  The air was pierced with a harrowing scream, and Minox looked up, seeing something—someone—fall from one of the upper floors of the burning building. A whole crowd was already formed around that part of Clover Street, gawking at the spectacle. When the building came down, it would fall on them.

  “Get the area cleared,” Minox said. “We’re about to have a worse situation.”

  Jace nodded, and pushed ahead, Minox right on his heels.

  “Clear out, clear—” Minox shouted. “You must get safely away—”

  Through the crowd he could see a figure in a burgundy cloak, cradling a woman in his arms. Someone in the crowd screamed and pointed at him.

  “THORN! MURDERER!”

  Chapter 12

  INSTINCT AND MAGIC took over as Veranix started to fall, one hand still holding the mother, while Emilia’s arrow-ridden body dropped down. The world around slowed to a halt, his own descent now a crawl. He pushed a blast of wind beneath him, and twisted his body to get his feet underneath him. Cradling the old woman in his arms, his feet touched the ground as light as a feather.

  Then the world jumped back into place, screams and rushing and chaos.

  Emilia’s body smashed onto the stones, a horrifying sight of blood and flesh. Veranix shielded the old woman’s eyes, but that didn’t dull the screams of horror that came from the rest of the crowd.

  Veranix looked up to the roof of the building across the street. There in the moonlight, he saw the archer. A man with a bow and a crimson cloak.

  “The Thorn!” someone shouted. “Murderer!” More shouted the same things. Half the people were pointing at Veranix, and the other half at the man on the roof.

  Veranix let the terrified woman down onto her feet just before something hit him in the head. Just hard enough to hurt.

  He had to ignore it. Up there on the roof, the imposter moved away. He drew away the rope and shot it up that building, sending enough magic into his legs to leap up. He knew he wasn’t strong enough right now to reach the top, but the rope could. It coiled around a gutter outcropping, and he used it to pull himself the rest of the way.

  Shouts from down below. Angry, horrified. Constabulary whistles. There was probably more happening down there, but Veranix couldn’t pay it a lick of mind. There was only one thing—the imposter running across the roof. The fraud had killed Black—Emilia. Whoever this was, he had brought enough havoc to this neighborhood, especially to Veranix, and he was going to pay.

  Veranix nocked and fired an arrow in a flash, which soared past the imposter.

  The imposter stopped for a moment, glancing back at Veranix, and then went right back to his run, leaping to the next building. Veranix took three more steps in pursuit when a horrible cracking noise came from behind him. He turned back to see the whole building collapsing.

  Tons of plaster, wood, and concrete were about to drop onto the crowd below.

  He didn’t think. He just pulled every drop of numina he could summon through the cloak.

  The Thorn was already in the air and up on the roof before Minox could push his way through the crowd. The woman he had been carrying stood in a stupor, while another one lay dead on the ground, her body mangled from the fall and three redundant arrows in her chest.

  “Madam, we have to get you out of—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of cracking stone above him. The building was about to fall. The crowd still stood, slackjawed and gawking at the danger above them.

  “Move! Run!” Minox shouted. Jace was physically pulling people away, as was Pollit and a few other officers. Yellowshields and Fire Brigade were also here, but no one was going to be able to get everyone away in time.

  Minox grabbed the woman by the shoulders and pulled her away. The crowd was panicking, and he couldn’t get back through them, let alone guide her to safety. He looked back up to see a large chunk of the building coming from directly above him.

  Then he felt a surge in his left hand—a burst of energy, the likes of which he had not experienced since it changed into its
current inhuman form.

  Instinctively, he raised his arm up to the sky, and a bolt of green light poured out of his hand. It spread out into a wide circle, covering the crowd. The chunk of the building struck the circle of light, and Minox dropped to one knee. The weight was more than he was prepared to hold.

  “Go, go!” Jace was beating his way through the crowd, pushing them out of the way to get to Minox. Minox felt his body was drenched in cold sweat. “Minox, what are you—”

  “Get clear,” Minox grunted out through his teeth.

  The energy in his arm faltered. Legs buckling, he struggled to force another surge of magic out of himself.

  Another light, this one red, joined the green circle, wrapping around it.

  Minox knew the red energy hadn’t come from him. It was coming from above the mass of masonry that Minox was trying to hold above the crowd. The red light pressed into the green, crushing the pieces of the fallen building between them.

  Minox was on both knees now. The only reason why he hadn’t fallen down completely was his brother propping him up, even holding his left arm high.

  “I can’t . . .” Minox said. This was too much, more than he had ever borne.

  He let it go, and the green light fell apart. But all that remained of the chunks of the building was a blanket of dust and powder, which fell on the remaining crowd.

  Minox looked up again, and on the roof on the opposite corner, he saw the cloaked figure again. The man up there was half slumped over the eave, as spent as Minox was.

  “Is that—” Minox managed to wheeze out.

  “I think so,” Jace said.

  The figure—the Thorn—looked at Minox for several seconds before pushing himself away from the edge of the roof, out of sight.

  “We need—we should—” Minox tried to say.

  “Get you out of here,” Jace said, pulling Minox to his feet. “You’re as weak as a kitten, and this crowd could turn on you.”

  “But we—we need—”

  “I’ve got you, Minox,” Jace said. “Let me get you someplace safe.”