by Andrew Post
* * *
Taking the ground floor, Anoushka stepped unevenly along the narrow gangway, passing cramped cell after cramped cell. She kept close to the railing, mere inches out of reach from a forest of swiping fingers. Within: monsters who’d been monsters before but were now wearing their true selves more plainly. Starved to skeletons, spitting, cursing mouths. Anoushka, having been called worse, shuffled on, sweat running down her sides and off her nose, scanning face after face after face after face . . .
The smell was unreal. A crusting dark-brown filth was slathered over every horizontal surface. This place was never cleaned, it seemed. Once in, the prisoners were in—except for placement within the iron maidens. Perhaps the gobs had heard about chandeliers but grossly misinterpreted the concept; the iron maidens, suspended by chains over the open furnace, drained a black soup of rot from slotted undersides.
Stepping around the rank stream, she hobbled on.
No one even resembling Peter. He was a big man—but it would’ve been impossible for six years in this nightmare not to have changed him. Had she already walked right past him without knowing? She turned. From this floor’s railing, she could see up a level to where Kylie-Nae skimmed the cells, across. Another floor up, Russell did the same. Lodi, having never met the man, had volunteered to keep watch at the gate, ready to call out if the gobs found a way in. If they did find Peter, how would they get out with him alive?
Flashes of Markus came to Anoushka: the sound made as gobs’ feet flattened him—krchk. Teeth flew. One eye popped. White. His brains were running out. Pink. He died in agony screaming he was sorry.
She pulled up her shirt collar to filter her breath and continued the search.
“Cunt.”
“Bitch.”
“Let me out, bitch.”
“Cunt.”
She hobbled on.
Face after face.
“Cunt.”
“Bitch.”
She hobbled—th-thump, th-thump.
Face. Face.
“Cunt.”
“Bitch.”
Face.
“Cunt.”
Rotten teeth, rotten eyes, rotten souls. Face, face.
One slammed himself against the bars, crushing his face between the iron rails. “I’ll fuck the new holes I make, beautiful,” he sprayed through brown teeth. “Fuck you raw.”
She leveled her mammoth-killer. He, along with the others in the cell, pressed bare backs to the stone at the rear of the cell. Gun at her hip, she took each one’s measure. None was Peter. She met the jaundiced eyes of the one who’d made the vulgar threat. She ratcheted back the hammer. He didn’t look away.
“Do it,” he hissed. “Do it.”
She fired, sparking a bullet off the floor at his feet. He yelped and did a stupid little dance. With his bluster destabilized, his voice cracked. “Ha! Some aim. You missed!”
Anoushka nodded at the inmate’s urine-dampened loincloth. “Looks to me like I got what I was after.”
“Here!” Kylie-Nae called, a floor up.
After a parting glare, Anoushka holstered and struggled up the circular staircase, boots clunking on the muck-slicked metal.
Halfway down the long gangway, Kylie-Nae stood at the bars of a cell, leaning forward to squint past the screaming mouths and clawing hands. Russell came from the other way, and they met Kylie-Nae, who was pointing. Anoushka followed her finger. Of the group, the only man among his cell mates not standing to curse or plead was a deflated version of Peter. His modesty was maintained only by a scrap of stained cloth, and his beard hung to his navel in a silver-streaked snarl. Sunken cheeks. Blank eyes stared at the cell’s far wall, blinking slowly, owlishly. She shouted his name through the competing noise, but it stirred nothing in him.
From their remaining powder charge, Anoushka tore a small hole and poured a spoonful of powder on the cell’s lock. She flung a match, and the lock cracked apart.
The men inside flooded against the gate, clanging it wide. Drawing back, Anoushka imagined being trampled to death like Markus—or worse—but instead, watched as the prisoners ran together to the railing—and threw themselves over. Each twisted and tumbled after the next to the furnace’s waiting flames; freed, by some definition.
“Holy shit,” Kylie-Nae breathed, burned hands over her mouth.
“And the Ma’am wants to do away with the guillotine ’cause it’s inhumane?” Russell said and spat.
Anoushka stepped into the all-but-vacant cell. Footing unreliable on the floor slick with shit, she slid one hand along the grimy wall for balance. By red furnace light, she bent to look in his eyes—or put herself where he was staring. His chest rose and fell. His mouth remained a hard line.
A soiled golem.
“Peter? It’s Anoushka. Can you stand up? Peter?” She waved Kylie-Nae and Russell near. “We’re gonna have to carry him.”
Kylie-Nae got under one arm, and Russell took the other. Together they dragged Peter from the cell. Following them out, Anoushka looked a floor down—Lodi had her back pressed to the wall, clear of the closed gate. The gobs were back, heckling and begging for Lodi to come near, promising they’d make it quick, while others rammed the ends of logs against the bars, bending some in.
Lodi met Anoushka’s eyes, threw out her hands, and made a face—Well, do you have him or not? and Anoushka replied with a nod big enough to be read from down there. Lodi flipped a hand around the corner to the grate. The bars grew red. The gobs, shrieking, withdrew. But they continued running their makeshift battering ram and firing blind through the bars.
With Peter’s bare feet carving two clean paths along the gangway, Kylie-Nae and Russell dragged him to the spiral staircase, Anoushka hobbling behind. Seeing one of their own being taken away, alive, the other prisoners’ noise shifted, turning feral. Cell after cell soured, their outpouring threats forsaking words for angry noise and clattering, rattled bars.
Something caught Anoushka’s eye. The gangways running along the cell doors bore clear paths where the goalers patrolled footprints in the muck. Among the gob-sized footprints: two triangles, tight together. Cloven hooves. But with how they were arranged as they crept along, apart from those of the goalers, it didn’t seem they had been on four legs but two, upright.
“Annie?”
Anoushka flinched. The prison noise rushed in around her, the pain in her leg with it.
“Need a hand here,” Kylie-Nae was saying.
Anoushka, the berserker’s left leg in her hands, a few steps behind and above, had a clear view of Peter’s face—and the fear in his lifeless brown eyes.
They made one pass down the stairs, then the next, Russell going backward down the twisting stairwell, laboring under the bulk of Peter’s weight. Once at the bottom, they moved to where Lodi had posted up next to the gate and laid Peter down so Kylie-Nae and Russell could reload. The berserker shivered despite the unbearable heat, arms curled around his naked, emaciated form. Anoushka explained the pig footprints to Lodi as the others finished getting ready. The wizardess didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the news—but Russell and Kylie-Nae, overhearing, momentarily paused slotting bullets to chambers.
“If Lyle’s been getting in,” Lodi said, “with this many wards smeared everywhere, he’s pulling out the big guns.” She shattered a tiny elixir bottle on the floor, grimacing at its taste. “Nearly did me in just stealing a bird’s-eye view of the front gate.”
With it halfway ripped open, Anoushka fumbled to keep their final charge from bleeding its remaining powder. She landed it in front of the gate, having trailed a line to where its short flight ended. The gobs, familiar with the smell of blast powder, dropped their battering ram and withdrew. Match sparked, the powder on her hands blazed painfully for a moment—but the trail had been set, sizzling around the corner.
They covered their ears.
The gate was rent, shards leaping far into the cell block to clang against cells three flights up.
Hoi
sting Peter up again, they plunged through the black smoke and raining debris. Gunfire tore through, and they returned fire, never stopping, pushing, killing gobs whenever they appeared in sulfuric dark. Screams, gunfire, and chittering laughter. Russell, Lodi, and Kylie-Nae dragged Peter along; Anoushka led, limping, firing at everything that moved. Slapping the gun free of brass jackets, she thumbed in new ones and unloaded the mammoth-killer again and again; one, two, three, four, five, six—reload—one, two, three. They turned a corner. A man stood at the far end, his back to them.
Tangerine doublet, stripedy tights. Turning stutteringly on his heel, Markus faced them. His head was like a fish’s—one eye for either side of a flat head. In his remaining eye was none of the doting bard’s assistant trying hard to do a good job. With a cold bolt nailing her to where she stood, Anoushka hoisted the mammoth-killer and cocked back.
The others ran into the back of her, saw, dropped Peter, and took aim.
Markus jerkily lifted his mostly uncrushed arm and angled a single, crooked finger at Anoushka. The finger hung there outstretched, shaking, the boy behind it stared.
Lodi moved forward, put out her hands. The stolen carcass attempted to speak but only spit broken teeth from a pulped jaw. Heh . . . heh.
“Where are you?” Anoushka demanded, shaking inside.
His expression flinched, brow clouding sadly. A peek of Markus came through again, the true Markus. Frightened. In pain. And suddenly, the stolen corpse’s posture went straight, things cracking within him. He fell to the floor, thrown away.
It took Kylie-Nae bumping her in the back to get Anoushka to budge. Moving around the boy’s corpse, she ran—as much as she could on her shot-up leg—propelled by what she’d seen, though convinced she’d never be able to put enough distance between her and what she’d witnessed.
Reaching the front gate, they found themselves pinned down right before the exit to the courtyard. The gobs had taken to posting on the high wall again. Jumping from cover to sneak shots cleared a few, but the gobs were camouflaged well among the leering gargoyles. There was no other way out. Anoushka could see the front gates—right there—whenever she peeked out to fire. But they may as well have been a thousand miles off. She dodged daringly out into view, fired; shots coming in reply immediately. She took cover again, the wall she hid behind vibrating against her back—rifle bullets angling for her but denied. Kylie-Nae and Russell helped, but with all the fire coming at them, it was impossible to take the necessary time to aim . . .
“We need to get out of here,” Kylie-Nae shouted, cut short by a bullet smacking the plaster near her. “They’re eventually gonna figure out to come around from the side or behind.”
A howl—its note went and went, overtaking the popping and snapping gun reports. You’d need to be dead to not feel cold fingers slithering up your spine.
“The beast o’ the blazes,” one gob on the ramparts screamed—no longer laughing.
Anoushka dared a peek. The assault had paused. Silence.
A hunchbacked mass of dark fur passed through the hole in Breakshale’s front gates. Head low, golden eyes reflecting torchlight like glowing disks, it growled low in its throat stutteringly, like an out-of-tune motor. The gobs, scattering, climbed each other to squeeze through tiny doors arrayed about the courtyard. Within seconds, the place was empty save for the hellhound. Only then did it end its broken growl.
Sniffing one of the gob corpses, it paused, catching something else on the air. It turned with the scent to meet Anoushka’s gaze. Though thinner and with much more silver around the muzzle and over its eyes, it was still Teetee. Anoushka, Kylie-Nae, and Russell lowered their weapons. Lodi stumbled back as the enormous dog entered the shattered front doors, estimating each for a moment, but continued, dragged along helplessly by what scent it’d caught. Seeing Peter lying in the hall where they’d set him, the dog halted. Its bushy tail gave one small wag as he approached.
“Lad, look, it’s yer dog,” Russell tried, but Peter simply stared toward the hanging braziers above. Determined, Teetee gave an exploratory lick to Peter’s limp hand—and craned back to wail away his loneliness. The howl ripped down the hallway. And back. Echo, echo. A few gobs in their hiding places within the walls shrieked. Likewise, the berserker lurched as if struck. Tears welled in Peter’s focusing eyes. He reached out, and Teetee bowed under the hand, flopping close against the berserker’s bare, sunken chest. No judgment about why his master was ever away from him. Just happy to have him returned.
* * *
“Did you get him? Is that him?” The bard shoved past Russell and Kylie-Nae to grab Peter’s limp hand. “My name is Ruprecht LeFevre the Second, and today marks quite the honor for me—and the luckiest of your life. Peter? It’s rude not to look at someone when they’re speaking to you.”
“Lad’s a vegetable.” Russell let Peter drop to the dirt. The berserker, having sunk back into himself during the trip down the mountain, didn’t seem to notice.
Kylie-Nae took Anoushka aside, saying she wanted to get a better bandage on her leg.
“Perhaps,” Anoushka said, sitting by the fire, “you’d like to tell us what was up with the little assignment you gave Markus?”
The bard turned to scold his assistant but found Markus wasn’t among them. “Well, that’s unfortunate.” Dunking a rag into their pail of drinking water, Ruprecht knelt to daub at Peter’s grime-crusted arm.
“That’s all you have to say? You can’t ignore this.” Anoushka’s focus was torn away when Kylie-Nae pulled her bloody pant leg up. The strata of skin and muscle tissue was made visible when Kylie-Nae poured some water from her canteen over the wound, momentarily clearing the blood. Anoushka felt lightheaded.
Peter, once having caught sight of the campfire, would stare at nothing else. Ruprecht tried coaxing Teetee near with kissy sounds. The wolfhound declined the invitations but remained close enough to lunge if Ruprecht showed ill intent toward his master.
“Ruprecht. Look at me and tell me why—shit—why you did it.”
“Sorry,” Kylie-Nae said, tossing the alcohol-soaked rag aside, then dampening another. “I can’t see the bullet . . .”
Ruprecht hummed as he scrubbed under Peter’s chin, making the man change colors, from dusty gray to his natural, albeit pale, swarthy tone. Anoushka picked up a rock. It sailed over his head and rattled the dead leaves past him, unnoticed except by Teetee, who padded off to fetch it.
“Forget it,” Lodi said. “He’s got a new toy. But maybe our esteemed bard might be interested to know Lyle Eichelberger is, for sure, using repeater devices. Maybe our esteemed bard would also like to know how we came to learn this: our mark used Markus to confirm this suspicion. Rupie? Asshole? Are you fucking hearing this? He’s been watching Peter.”
“Yes, Lodi, I heard you,” Ruprecht snapped, “thank you. But we have our man now, so it’s fine. We can start the hunt in earnest.”
Anoushka stood, balancing on one leg. “Still doesn’t explain why you told Markus to kill us if we ran.”
Her hand moved to her holster. She didn’t draw. But apparently the metallic ch-chik was what it took.
With a snarl, Ruprecht stood and pitched the balled washrag into the dirt. “I told him to threaten you, Miss Demaine. Not actually do it. I needed a guarantee. We had to get Peter. And let’s be honest here: how many of you can claim to be genuinely disheartened by losing Markus? Well? We’re better off without the fool. Admit it.”
Russell filled a mug of much-needed ale. From within his foamed beard, he said, “That’s the lad’s word against yours—and he’s not able to speak for himself, not anymore.”
Kylie-Nae applied salve to her burned hands and forearm and wrapped them in gauze. Anoushka could tell her oldest friend was picturing Markus’s death. She rolled and rolled the gauze around her arm, frowning into the task.
All eyes were on the bard—save Peter’s, which trailed the embers spinning up into the sky with a dull transfixion.
Ruprecht thrust a finger at Peter, who was half-washed on the ground. “Markus didn’t have to do anything because you’re all so capable! The pepperbox wasn’t even loaded.”
“No?” Lodi said and produced the four-barrel pistol from her robes. The grip was crusted in dried blood. “Let’s test that.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“But you just said it’s not loaded. So you have nothing to worry about. Right?”
Teetee moved around to stand between the wizardess and his master, ears back, teeth showing.
“Relax, mutt,” Lodi said. “Rupie assures us it’s not loaded.”
“Lodi, stop,” Ruprecht said. “You’ve made your point.”
The wizardess leveled the gun at Peter’s face. Four barrels brushing his eyelashes, he blinked against them, unbothered. Lodi thumbed back the hammer.
“Enough,” Ruprecht shouted but didn’t dare get too close. He wrung his hands. “Please.”
“Why? Without any bullets in it, a gun is as lethal as a paperweight.” Lodi looked at Peter down the gun’s double sights. Anoushka breathed through gritted teeth.
Lodi raised the gun toward the night sky and sent four simultaneous dead clicks into the wind—but no bullets. She shoved the gun against the silk chest of Ruprecht’s doublet and shuffled out into the woods, her cloaks absorbed by the firelight after three rustling strides, kicking through dead leaves and cursing.
Stuffing the gun into his pocket, Ruprecht turned to the others. “I was telling the truth.”
“You sure were,” Anoushka said, poking at the fire.
“Could I get a cup of that, Russ?” Kylie-Nae said, sitting next to her.
“Aye,” Russell said and brought one for Anoushka, even though she hadn’t asked.
Ruprecht went to the trunk he’d been sitting on when they’d arrived. He threw its lid back, and inside was a heap of black metal armor neatly arranged. Peter’s suit—but different, new. From between the gauntlets with steel-studded knuckles and broad breastplate, he lifted out a helm. Bucket style, with a wide slash for a viewport in the otherwise complete faceplate.
