The Red Winter

by Henry H. Neff

  And so were Braiden’s legions. They were sweeping in from the side now, driving Rowan’s forces into the heaviest concentration of mortar fire. The fighting below was absolutely furious, a roar and clash that could be heard even above the chaos in the worker districts. In the screen, Prusias saw the Hound and the maiden rushing on foot to meet these new attackers. There was an explosion of light as the Hound struck, followed by a shock wave that leveled hundreds. Braiden’s troops fell back and they were not the only ones. Even Rowan’s forces were fleeing from the Hound. All but the maiden. A chill ran through Prusias. Outside his gates, a god of war was loose.

  But that god was not here. He was out there—out in that deafening carnage where mortars were falling, Braiden’s troops were regrouping. The gates would hold, the Hound would tire, and the king’s enemies—broken and exhausted—would succumb to cold winds and hot steel. It was only a matter of time.

  Time. Prusias gazed up. Whatever vague hint of sun there had been was already setting. How much time had passed? Eight hours? Ten? He’d hardly noticed—had barely bothered to breathe, much less eat in all this excitement. Prusias was famished, exhausted, exhilarated. He glanced down to see the smuggler, a huddled blue misery.

  “We’ll dine soon, my dear,” he chuckled. “Inside where you’ll be more comfortable. This will soon be finished …”

  The demon trailed off as a roar sounded from the worker districts. Prusias had almost forgotten them, their fate a foregone conclusion. But something had changed. Rioters were surging at the gates, joined suddenly by thousands who had taken shelter behind burning buildings. Prusias wheeled on Dr. Wyle.

  “Are those gates opening?”

  Dr. Wyle was already consulting his computer tablet, his anxious face illuminated by its screen. Blinking rapidly, he tapped the screen. “There must be a mistake,” he muttered.

  “What mistake?”

  “It seems someone’s entered the code to open the gates separating the worker districts from the rest of the city.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I … I don’t know,” the engineer stammered. “The command can only be given from a secure location in the city. The person would have to be on-site.”

  “Show me!”

  The Workshop man tapped hurriedly on his screen. Seconds later, he was staring at something that made him gasp. Prusias snatched the device from the man’s hands and found himself looking at a camera feed from a control room terminal. Someone was looking back at him—a pale, scarred man wearing a black cap. Prusias knew that face, had seen the fellow grapple with Grahn at the Gràvenmuir médim. Upon seeing the astonished king, the man touched two fingers to his temple.

  “The Red Branch sends its compliments.”

  Offscreen, Prusias could hear a woman’s voice. “William, there’s an awful lot of smoke in here. Don’t you think we should be going? Toby’s getting sick.”

  The man nodded. “Aye, love. A mob’s coming this way and they’ll be out for blood.” With a wink at Prusias, the man shattered the camera with of the point of a blade. The screen went blank.

  Thrusting the tablet back into Dr. Wyle’s hands, Prusias hurried to the balcony. Far below, hundreds of thousands of workers—maddened with fire and fear—were pouring through the open gates into the districts of Tier 2. There were no gargoyles to stop them, only half his Imperial Guard—ten thousand troops—who thought they would be firing upon confined and helpless targets. As the mob engulfed them, they were swept away like sandcastles at high tide. A terrifying thought occurred to Prusias. Swallowing his fear, he turned to Dr. Wyle.

  “That man can’t open the main gate from there, can he? Only I have that authorization?”

  “Correct, Your Majesty.”

  Prusias surveyed the escalating chaos. The worker districts were contained in a section that took up roughly a third of the lowest tier. Help was nearby, if he was willing to break a few eggs. He was.

  “I want the dreadnoughts to destroy that mob before they can reach Tier Three.”

  “My king,” said Dr. Wyle. “The dreadnoughts are not designed for fine work. They’ll obliterate everything in the lower districts—buildings and rioters alike.”

  “What of it?” snapped Prusias. “We can always rebuild. Once that mob is neutralized, this siege is finished. The invaders will die outside my gates.”

  But even as Dr. Wyle issued the command, Mr. Bonn tugged urgently at his master’s elbow. The little imp could not speak. He merely pointed west—not at the great gates or the furious fighting outside them but far beyond. Beyond even the glinting ruins of Grael’s legions. He pointed toward the distant sea.

  A storm was coming, a storm far swifter than anything in Nature’s arsenal. Even here, even with the din below, one could hear the rumble of thunder as the heavy, swirling front of thunderclouds swept toward his city.

  Prusias could only stare as the storm assumed something like a physical shape. At first, its form could only be guessed at—an amorphous suggestion of a torso and limbs that advanced upon Blys like a colossus of roiling, billowing vapor. But with every gargantuan step, the figure solidified and its features became clearer. They were wild features, horned features—the features of an ancient and forgotten god. A god Prusias had failed to bribe or conquer, a god who had finally left his isle.

  It was the Fomorian.

  Leaning down, Prusias unceremoniously yanked the torque from Madam Petra’s throat and turned to his speechless imp. “Mr. Bonn, I think it’s time we discussed plan B.”

  Just outside Blys’s gates, Max and Scathach stood panting amid their fallen adversaries. Max’s senses were returning, coming into focus as his battle fury dimmed. Many of the nearest enemies had fallen; the others were falling back, fleeing in apparent terror from something behind him. The earth was shaking, groaning with tremors that toppled wains, staggered the living, and bounced the dead like broken mannequins. Max turned as a vast shadow fell over the river and bridges. Its gloom stretched across the battlefield, climbing the massive walls as the Fomorian approached. And all who felt that shadow—every soldier and spirit—fled before it.

  Max and Scathach were no exception.

  They scattered with the rest, thousands parting in a mad dash to escape the giant’s path before they were crushed. As he backed away, Max remembered the demons he’d seen on the giant’s beaches, those lifeless husks who thought they’d invade his isle. He understood the terror stamped upon their frozen features.

  The giant did not even appear to notice the tiny beings scattering before him, fleeing for the mountains or over the bridges. Hundreds of feet he stood, so huge that he could almost peer over the walls and seize the dreadnoughts that had just withdrawn from the gates. His form was nearly solid now, his legs trailing billows of mist and vapor as he strode across the river and closed upon the city gates. Arrows and bullets peppered his flesh, mortars burst before his eyes, but the Fomorian did not slow or falter. He merely advanced, his eyes white-rimmed with rage as he chanted ancient spells of earth and iron, blood and breaking.

  Max did not know what had triggered the giant’s appearance. Whether he had chosen to answer their plea, exact revenge against Prusias, or even to make up for the unkind words he’d said about David. Whatever the reason, the Fomorian was here and the game had changed.

  Rearing back, the giant smashed his maul against the great gates as a man might take a sledgehammer to a door. The impact sent Max and Scathach flying, tumbling in a heap to rest by a fallen shedu. Scathach was yelling to him, but Max could not hear her. He could not hear anything but a dull, painful ringing. Glancing up, he saw that the gates were dented and smoking. Glowering, the Fomorian drew back his maul and prepared to strike another blow. Max covered his ears.

  When the giant’s hammer fell, great cracks and fissures appeared in the surrounding stonework. Again and again, the Fomorian struck the gates and walls, hammering them, punishing them, tearing away huge chunks of masonry with his bare hands.
That the gates would fall was no longer in question; the Fomorian seemed more intent on reaching the dreadnoughts.

  He would soon have that chance. Moments later, the gates and much of the surrounding wall gave way. They crashed inward, a section some fifty yards wide, as massive clouds of dust and grit mingled with the swirling snow.

  Blys was breached.

  With a roar, the giant charged through the gap, disappearing behind the veil of fire and smoke to overtake the dreadnoughts and drive them to the side, away from the gates. Max glimpsed a dreadnought’s tentacle, saw the glint of the Fomorian’s maul rise up and descend with terrifying force. It was like witnessing a battle from another age, an age where old gods and monsters clashed for supremacy. But Max could not stop to watch; Blys was breached and there was no time to lose. He had to rally every Rowan and Raszna soldier who had the strength and will to follow.

  Gripping the gae bolga, he pushed himself up. Prusias’s infantry were still in shock from the giant’s appearance. Many were fleeing over bridges or retreating en masse toward the mountains from which they had emerged. Those that remained resumed their heated fighting with Rowan and Raszna along the outer wall. Max had to put an end to these skirmishes; they were mere distractions from the main chance.

  Seizing the reins of a riderless horse, Max swung himself into the saddle and cantered up and down the battlefield, shouting at all within earshot to follow him. Scathach did the same, shouting at all within earshot to get inside the city. Max was shining once again, burning as bright as a fallen star. And those who beheld him did not doubt or question, quibble or pause—they found heart and strength and purpose. They rallied by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, to answer his call.

  Through the breach, through the smoke and dust and fire they raced: humans and vyes, centaurs and Cheshirewulfs, aged Mystics and teenaged refugees. They poured into Blys, giving the embattled Fomorian and dreadnoughts a wide berth. Max and Scathach rode at the fore with several Raszna war chiefs. Beneath great stone arches they stampeded, sweeping past abandoned markets and bazaars, crossing the burning slums and ghettos as they made for the city’s upper tiers and the districts reserved for Blys’s elite. They needed to make a push for the palace.

  There were no gargoyles to hinder them, no troop formations or organized defenses as they ascended the city. But the streets were littered with the bodies of Prusias’s troops, dead workers, and the remains of shattered barricades. Max could see the mob ahead. Cooper had done his job; they had passed into Tiers 2 and 3 by the tens of thousands. Ahead was a sea of teeming, raging humans and vyes, pulling down statues and setting fire to anything that would burn in the vast square whose three gates sealed off the city’s upper tiers reserved for nobility.

  Coming to a halt, Max turned and told Scathach and the war chiefs to keep Rowan’s forces and the Raszna back. The mob was in a destructive frenzy and liable to attack any group they saw. Max rode toward them alone.

  Thousands turned as Max approached, his aura visible even to the humans. They gazed upon him as the Raszna had done, with a mixture of fear and awe that drove them into obedient silence. Men and women, vyes and goblins began to bow, to kneel and prostrate themselves on the frozen cobbles.

  “Get up,” Max shouted. “This is your day, and it’s not finished. The fighting will be harder near the palace. Strike down any who resist. Give quarter to those who surrender.”

  “Why?” cried a teenaged girl, her face badly singed. “They’d never give it to us!”

  “Which is why you’re better than them,” Max answered. “You’re not animals. You’re not slaves. You’re not thieves or vandals. You’re free people with hearts and souls and honor.” He raised the gae bolga in a grim salute. “Sol Invictus.”

  Their roar shook the square. “Sol Invictus!”

  The workers closed behind Max as he rode toward the central and largest gate. Cooper had hoped to get these open as well, but Max suspected the Workshop’s people had by now shut down or incapacitated the control room he, Hazel, and Toby had infiltrated.

  Now that Max was here, it would not matter. The doors were covered with gold leaf and elaborately engraved, but beneath this ornamentation was thick steel plating. The gae bolga sank through it without the slightest quiver or resistance. The blade might have been cutting foam. When he’d carved out the contours of an opening some twenty feet wide, Max moved aside so the workers could push against it. A cheer went up as the door crashed inward. Hundreds upon hundreds started rushing through, dashing through the gap to renew their long, laborious ascent toward the palace.

  Max knew the way would not be easy. These districts were home to the king’s nobles, to greater demons with wealth and status, private security and many servants. David had assured Max and the Raszna that he would take steps to minimize resistance once Rowan’s forces reached the upper tiers, but he hadn’t revealed what form this help would take. But Max knew better than to doubt his friend. If David said he had a plan, then a plan he had.

  Max’s plan was to create more openings. The one was a start, but it would take too long for everyone to funnel through it. Speed was of the essence and thus Max guided his mount against the tide of streaming workers, pushing through them so he could carve openings through the other two gates. He had just finished the third when he heard a woman’s voice, hoarse and panicked, yelling his name.

  Madam Petra stood twenty feet behind him. Scathach had the smuggler gripped firmly by the hair, her poignard at her throat.

  “Please!” cried Madam Petra, struggling in vain. “I must speak with you!”

  The smuggler’s appearance was almost absurd—rich clothes and furs muddied and tattered. She wore one diamond earring, but the other had been ripped from an ear that had bled onto her white stole. Her face was almost as pale as she stamped with a frantic desperation.

  “Please!” she cried. “You must help me!”

  Max looked past her as a shuddering crash sounded far below where the Fomorian was battling the dreadnoughts. All of Blys was a battleground. He didn’t have time for a person who had profited when Rowan was attacked and who had abandoned it for a life of luxury among the demons. She’d made her bed. He gestured for Scathach to turn her loose. “Let her go. She can’t hurt us.”

  Scathach disagreed. “She could be working with the Atropos. We know they’re close.”

  While it was true a Raszna outrider had spied the clones eight days ago, Max could not worry about the Atropos in the midst of a battle. Still, Madam Petra’s eyes had widened at hearing the name.

  “I know about the Atropos!” she blurted. “I know where Prusias is! I … I can help you, but only if you help me!”

  Only if you help me was practically the woman’s mantra. Still, Madam Petra did have a talent for acquiring useful information. Max moved away from the opened gate, away from the inrushing tide of workers and soldiers, so that he and Scathach could hear what the smuggler had to say. Scathach dragged the woman over, her blade still pressed to her neck.

  “You have ten seconds,” said Max. “Prusias first. Where is he?”

  “I won’t tell you,” gasped Madam Petra. “Not unless you promise to help me.”

  Max shook his head. “Tell me what you know or go on your way. I’m not bargaining with you.”

  Tears shone in the smuggler’s eyes. “B-but you must!”

  “Five seconds.”

  Madam Petra bit her lip, her eyes darting here and there as her mind cast about for angles and opportunities. Max snapped his fingers beneath her nose.

  “At Piter’s Folly, you said you liked nothing better than a desperate seller,” he reminded her. “You’re the desperate seller, Petra, and you’re running out of time. What do you know?”

  “The Atropos are close!” she hissed. “The assassins have been tracking you since you were at Enlyll. I heard their representative talking with Prusias.”

  He shrugged. This wasn’t news.

  “What else? Where’s Prus
ias?”

  “Not in the palace.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Max impatiently.

  “A Prusias is in the great hall, but not the Prusias. I saw the king slip away with Mr. Bonn and some malakhim. An imposter is ordering the palace’s defense.”

  “Where did he go?”

  She gave a knowing smile. “Into his private elevator. An elevator that leads to the underground trains.”

  “He’s fleeing to the Workshop?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Max fell silent, weighing Petra’s information. He was dimly aware that fires were burning now in the city above them, wild infernos spitting gouts of black smoke into the crimson evening. Far below, Blys’s lower districts were almost wholly obscured in a flickering fog of devastation. Everywhere was noise and confusion, torrents of Rowan and Raszna fighters streaming through the gates. A cry sounded behind them. Max turned to see a pair of leaping Cheshirewulfs drag a fleeing oni from his charger. The demon landed heavily on his back, the animals worrying at his throat.

  What to do with Petra’s information? The woman could be lying, of course. There was nothing she wouldn’t say or do if it suited her. Still, unless Max was badly mistaken, her desperation was genuine. And if the king really had fled, they needed to hunt him down. Getting their hands on Prusias—whether dead or alive—was crucial to declaring victory. Max turned to Scathach.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think she’s playing a game,” said Scathach coolly. “She wants something and needs you to get it for her. Perhaps it’s something to do with that bruise around her neck. Where’s Max’s torque, Madam Petra? Did someone ‘borrow’ it?”

  The smuggler scowled. “Prusias took it—stole it like a common thief! I hope it chokes him. But that’s not what I want. I just want my daughter. I want Katarina!”