“If the enemy’d caught the messenger, they’d probably be flying his corpse up there with that ugly flag. Make sure we see it.”
Crispin looked up over the rooftops of the burning town and saw the black finger of the starship standing tall. The Orin banner hung above it, spreading in the wind. Crispin felt the serpent turning over in his stomach at the sight—a sight he had never thought to see. Looking at it, Crispin felt almost as if it were staring at him, sensing almost the anger and the antique malice of the vessel and the blood-hatred of the lady within it, as though it were an evil eye. Crispin pointed his sword hand at the tower and made a warding gesture, the first and last fingers extended. It was a weak gesture of defiance, but he felt his soul rally all the same.
A shot rang out, deep and resounding off the faces of the surrounding mountains and, looking up, Crispin saw another of the skiffs transformed into a spiraling ball of smoke. For a moment, he thought he saw the gleam of metal high on the face of the mountain behind the church, and Crispin wondered if it were Jean-Louis or one of the other adorators who had shot down the attackers. He raised a sword in unseen salute.
Then a black shadow passed overhead, greater than the streaking darkness of the skiffs: another of the troop carriers streaking in low and fast to avoid Kyra and the cannon.
“It’s heading back up towards the temple!” Lud said.
All around, the shrilling of the peasants’ whistling rose to a fever pitch, and Crispin imagined dozens of irregulars pounding up the streets towards the old, white building and the hundreds of villagers who sheltered within. Crispin thought of Sabine and his injured men in the rectory above the temple and started back towards the church at a loping run, blood again drumming in his ears, spurring him on.
As it had been the night before, the churchyard was chaos when they returned. Wind off the Kingfisher’s rotors whipped dust and smoke through the air, and men had leaped from the craft’s landing ramps and the side runners to the ground and the tops of the encircling buildings, and the crack of gunshots and clap of plasma fire filled the space surrounding that ancient stone arch and the statue of the lupine saint guarding the gate.
Crouching behind a wagon left in the street, Lud aimed at one of the enemy hoplites. Shielded, the man stood bold as brass atop the canted rooftop. Lud adjusted his grip and fired. The laser gleamed where it struck the man’s shield, and for a moment the man seemed not to notice that he was under fire.
It was a moment too long.
The energy lance stayed under continuous fire, and the beam’s high energies sucked at the shield’s power reserves until—twenty seconds later or thirty—the shield flashed and fell apart, and the man tumbled smoking from the rooftop. Crispin smiled in satisfaction. Royse shields did not take kindly to continuous fire, and the batteries in your standard belt pack could only take so much over a sustained period. By the time the fellow had realized what was happening and started to move out from under Lud’s beam, his shield was already failing.
More men leaped down from the Kingfisher as it arced around the outer wall of the churchyard until there must have been three dozen men in the square—more than Laurent had estimated. Crispin guessed they must have pulled every bit of hardware out of the landing craft to make room and drop weight for the extra men. They did not fight like Sollan legionnaires, back-to-back-to-back in shielded triases, but fell upon the defenders with the rapine and abandon of ancient vikings, each man striking out his own way, seeking blood for himself and glory. Shots rained down from above and, looking, Crispin saw the glint of sunlight off MAG rifles in the rocks above. A moment later, another of the skiffs went up in flames, shot down by Jean-Louis perhaps, or one of the other snipers. It crashed into the street not thirty feet from where Crispin stood, and seeing his chance he vaulted the wagon that he and Lud had used for cover. The cobblestones pressed against his feet so that it seemed the very village itself pushed him forward.
The pilot was still alive. Dazed and injured, he tried to climb free of the saddle. Crispin’s blade caught him below the shoulder, and he fell in pieces.
Someone shouted something in Durantine, followed by the bellowed word, “Marlowe! Marlowe!”
Gunfire peppered his shield, and Crispin rolled behind the crashed skiff, heedless of the blood soaking his cape. Snarling in frustration, he tore the garment off, feeling the magnets pop and click and cleave to the chassis of the machine at his back. He peered over the ruined skiff, saw a half dozen men storming up the street towards him from the entrance to the churchyard, and he thanked Earth and Fortitude that it was only six. Even as he watched, a shot from above claimed one of the men, and five of peasants appeared from the next alley down and joined the fray. Crispin thought he recognized one of Jean-Louis’s innumerable cousins among them and lurched to his feet just as Lud caught up to the knot of men, lance raised to strike.
Another of the MAG rounds caromed off one of the Durantine hoplites’ shields. The ricochet clipped one of the peasant defenders in the knee, and he fell with a strangled yell before one of the invaders shot him in the throat. Crispin didn’t even think about it. He cut the man in two, highmatter sword passing through energy curtain and armor and bone as easily as it did the smoke in the strangling air. He could not remember ever having felt so clear, so scraped clean of everything but the noise of blood and the adrenal song chanting out the need for survival.
After that, the other foederati all kept their distance. One raised a plasma burner, hoping to cook the unarmored Crispin through his shield, but one of the villagers—the one whom Crispin thought must be Jean-Louis’s cousin—hauled off and threw an elbow into the armored side of his head. The Durantine staggered, and the Frenchman thrust his hunting knife down into the joint at the base of the other man’s neck. Crispin hoped the pagan’s dying god would approve of his valor, for Mother Earth surely smiled. Unarmored as he was and armed only with one of the primitive hunting rifles and his knife, the boy was Fortitude himself.
Then the Kingfisher opened fire. Bullets rained down from the aircraft, threading the street and tagging every living soul standing in it. The bullets shattered uselessly against Crispin’s shield and the shields of the Durantine soldiers.
But the villagers. The surviving villagers survived no more.
Machine gun fire turned the four of them to meat and meal and an iron mist, and Crispin felt every vessel in him constrict in red dread. What sort of men were these that would fire on their own people—however shielded they might be?
Lud at least had not faltered. The peltast’s borrowed shield had saved him, and he skewered one of the foederati with the bayonet end of his lance and fired, cooking the man with the beam at point blank range. The man moved well in spite of his injuries, and gore-stained as he was, Crispin could do no less. He fired his plasma burner, catching one of the Durantines in the face as before. While the flash and the heat still blinded him, Crispin dashed forwards and slew the man with a roll cut, unzipping the fellow from shoulder to hip. Turning, he thrust his plasma burner forward, sword held back beside his head and primed to thrust.
The machine gunner in the ship above filled the street with a hail of bullets once again, and Crispin had to turn away to keep the shrapnel from his eyes. He could not stay here like this. His shield would not last forever. Maybe—just maybe—he could win through the knot of men before him and make the safety of the church. The doors were barred, but he could cut through and maybe bottleneck these invaders. Shielded and in the narrows of the gate, his sword would be a distinct advantage.
Then the earth shook with thunder, and for a brief and terrible instant, Crispin thought the mercenaries had brought a colossus. Turning to look at the black tower of the starship flying the Orin flag, he expected to see one of the metal giants with the shape of a man or an elephant towering above the walls of St. Maximus, artillery aglow.
But Earth had smiled—or so it seemed—and no such demon appeared.
Had Kyra fired her cannon? And h
ad the shot fallen close to him?
He looked for the smoke of its fire against the white and red face of the cliffs, but saw no eye of molten, weeping stone.
Then the thunder cracked the sky, and made it bleed. That second peal was louder than the first, and looking about Crispin saw—and understood. The outer walls of the township were gone, blown to dust and smithereens. Earth and stones alike fell like rain.
He saw the shot this time, fired from the enemy starships’s primary cannon, flashing violet from some port at the very apex of that dark tower, just below the golden serpent banner. Why had they not opened with such a weapon? They might have wiped the church and the entire village from the map, unless … did they mean to take him alive? But they had fired on him! Still, Crispin could not help but think that this little assassination attempt had not gone the way these Durantines and their nobile Orin mistress had envisioned. Shooting them out of the sky had been easy enough, then it should have been a small matter of plucking the living from their ruined shuttle—if there were any living at all. But they’d given these foreign bastards and their master a fight, and though the Durantines were ready for a fight, Crispin guessed they’d not been entirely prepared to make war.
He bit off a defiant bark of laughter.
And then St. Maximus answered. A ball of blue-white fire rose from the outer walls, and smote the dark tower, but the starship was unmoved. She was built of adamant, and adamant does not burn. But Kyra answered once more, and aimed at the enemy’s cannon, hoping to cripple the weapon before it could be used to devastating effect.
But Fate had heard Crispin’s defiance, and punished him for it. Deep purple thunder fell, and Crispin’s defiant laughter choked and shattered, and Kyra’s tower shattered, too. The Durantine cannon threw stones against the sky and shocked the very air such that even at his distance, Crispin felt the wind of the impact like the hot breath of a dragon laughing in his face.
What was it Kyra had said?
Let me do my job, sir.
Her job.
Crispin’s yell filled the sudden silence, and he struck down three of the men before him before the others had realized he was moving, and the last man only had time to stumble backwards and to fall.
Not a one escaped him.
Chapter 14
Blood Will Have Blood
Thus it was with the dust of Kyra’s funeral pyre filling the sky behind him that Crispin rounded the gatepost to the churchyard with Lud firing in his wake. He had a dim impression that his peltast had halted to pick the gunner out of the Kingfisher’s starboard emplacement. He wasn’t sure precisely, but he saw the bastard fall and break his back over the field stone wall.
The defenders still huddled in the shadow of the outer wall and amongst the pillars and buttresses that supported the outer wall of the ruined church. They were failing—falling—but had not yet fallen. Outgunned, outmanned, outmaneuvered, they had drawn back to this height and center of their township and their world.
Something made Crispin slow his advance, and he halted a moment. Hands shaking, he swore a silent oath to Earth and Emperor and by every icon there was to hear him, swore he would make this right. These people, these poor, doomed people were doomed because of him, be- cause of his family and House Orin and the ancient blood feud that lay between them.
Blood.
Blood would have blood, was having its fill.
He hoped that boy—Edmond, was it?—he hoped Edmond hadn’t been on the tower when it fell. A part of him dared to hope that Kyra hadn’t been on it, either, but he knew there was no hope in that desperate dream. Kyra was dead, must be dead—and the soldiers Brax and Emer with her. Their little band was reduced even further.
Soon there will be none of us left, he thought, and banished that grim voice.
There was no time for pity or self-loathing. And he had a sword in his hand.
With the machine gun fire from the ship above him halted for the time being, Crispin Marlowe hurled himself at the enemy, and the flash of his sword was like the coming of cruel lightning on that sunlit day. It was not hard to imagine that the encircling wall of the churchyard were the walls of the arena, though this time he performed for no audience, won no adulation.
Still on he flew.
Bless me with the sword of your courage, O Fortitude, Crispin prayed. May I never falter. May my enemies flee. He had said the words a thousand times in temple, in the Chantry before a fight. He had said the words on the decennial feast when the new levies were sent out to join the Legions and the war against the Cielcin, praying for their courage and their strength.
He took the legs out from under one man and hewed him as he fell, then shot another man in the chest with the plasma burner, advancing step by bloody step across the yard towards the statue of the dog-headed saint and the door. He paused a moment, ducking his head as a round of disruptor fire sparked against his shield—were they set to stun?
And Crispin raised his sword, “With me!” he called aloud, voice raw and clear in the chill air. “With me! To the doors! To the doors!”
Feet on the stone behind him. Shouts. Shots. Screams. Crispin flinched and half-crouched as an explosion erupted overhead and a rosette of orange flame bloomed as another skiff fell from the sky. Someone was shouting, high and ringing off the stone walls, “Maximus!” it said, “Maximus! Maximus!” And another, “Marlowe! Marlowe!” He saw one of the Durantines wrestling with two smaller peasant men. They had lost their guns in the struggle, and fought over the disruptor rifle the big offworlder still carried. Even as he passed them, Crispin saw one of the defenders—a boy, he guessed, no more than twelve years standard—tear at the shield generator on the man’s belt and leap away. He pointed, and let out a whistling so shrill and high that Crispin disbelieved that it was the noise of any human lips. A shot fell from heaven then, one of the MAG rifles. Crispin had a brief impression of a clean hole shot straight through the man’s head and of the light shining through it before the force of the impact bent the man and flattened him to the earth.
Then the boy fell as a bolt of disruptor fire claimed him, filling the air with the static crackle of lightning and the smell of ozone and faint smoke. Turning, Crispin saw four of the enemy standing atop the columbarium he had shattered the night before in his fight with the scouts. “Lud!” he pointed at them with his sword, “Take care of them!”
“Aye, sir!” said Lud, and moved off to take care of them.
“Seigneur!” one of the villagers fell in beside Crispin, and Crispin saw that he had pilfered one of the dead Durantines’ shields to complement the plasma burner he clutched in white-knuckled hands. “Why do they not use that hell weapon on us?”
Lord Marlowe did not answer, but pushed the man aside and fired past him, catching one of the mercenaries mid-charge with bayonet raised. Crispin spun past the peasant and drew his sword up in a rising arc that cut the man to ribbons. He pushed the man forward, “To the doors, damn you!”
But the fellow had asked the critical thing. Why hadn’t Orin and these Durantine bastards simply wiped the village off the map? Was it only that they meant to spare their own people on the ground? But if so, why had they bothered to field men at all? Why go to all this trouble and risk? Why not wipe St. Maximus off the map and have done?
Did they really mean to take Sabine and him alive?
Despite the heat of the moment and rushing of events around him, Crispin felt his blood go cold. He was no scholiast, but it was the only reasonable explanation. His eyes wandered up to the modernist lines of the rectory gleaming amid the stones above, and sensed somehow that Sabine must have come to the same conclusion where she watched from above.
A bullet whizzed over Crispin’s shoulder—just skating over the outside of his shield. He flinched, shaken back to reality. Pivoting, he stepped between the coming fire and the man beside him, shielding the fellow with his body. “Get to the doors, you fools! Move!” He bounded forward, sword leaping out.
In
the air above, the Kingfisher was coming back around, hovering over the street just beyond the low stone walls. He felt his face fall, his stomach drop. He’d forgotten the machine gun. There was no time. No time. They’d be in position to fire again in seconds.
Forgetting the gunmen behind him, Crispin sprinted towards the church.
Five of the Durantines clustered near the doors. They had been throwing their weight against them, and turned as Crispin drew close. Crispin saw their shields spark and shine as the defenders’ bullets impacted against them, and he lowered his plasma burner.
“Move!” he said, “or by Earth I will kill you where you stand.” They did not move.
Crispin swung his sword in a flat arc. One of the men fell backwards as Crispin struck—and falling saved his life. The highmatter cut through three of the Durantines and the door behind them, notching deep into the statue of the lupine saint. Blood sprang forth, staining the arch and the lintel and St. Christopher’s robes. Crispin paid the survivors no mind, but hacked at the locked and heavy doors with his sword. The old oak fell in splinters, and the defenders poured inside, pressing back those few of their fellows who—terrified—had held the doors from within. And Crispin turned, astonished, to see two of the adorators had stopped to help the fallen Durantine to his feet before the crush of their retreat trampled over him. Crispin seized one of the Catholics by the back of his neck and pushed him through the arch, “Leave him!”
“He’ll die!”
“He’s trying to kill you, you fool!” Crispin said, but his fellow had already helped the dazed mercenary to stand.
The palatine did not stop to argue with the peasant, but pushed past him to stand on the steps of the pagan temple. Lud appeared, retreating across the flagstones of the yard, the glaive and bayonet of his energy lance bloody in the pale sunlight. He and Crispin stood shoulder-to- shoulder as the Kingfisher came round.
It did not fire.
The Lesser Devil Page 13
