The Guns of Empire

by Django Wexler

  Her gummy eyes blinked and tried to focus. Ionkovo stood over her, face invisible behind his glittering mask. The door was a few feet away. Beyond that, the dining room, with doors to the small bedroom and the stairwell.

  Outside, she heard a popping sound. Muskets. Ionkovo cocked his head.

  “Orlanko’s people,” he said. “No doubt they’ll be slaughtered.” He lowered his voice in the manner of someone imparting a secret. “I’m afraid the Last Duke is a bit past his prime. He seems inclined to solve every problem by slitting throats, and the quality of his throat slitters has fallen off considerably.” He straightened up. “Speaking of which, where is your private killer? If she fought Wren to a standstill, I would have liked a chance at her.”

  “With Marcus,” Raesinia grated. “Whatever trap you’ve laid, they’ve fought their way out of it by now.”

  “I doubt that. Mirror is a vain man, but an effective one.”

  Raesinia said nothing. She lay perfectly still, not even breathing. Ionkovo regarded her a moment, then bent to one knee and leaned closer.

  “Here’s the question I want answered,” he said. “I know the Mages, the servants of the Beast, are protecting you. Are you one of them? Or are you merely a dupe? I must say, I suspect the latter. One could almost pity you. Your whole life, you’ve been nothing but a pawn, shuffled from side to side without knowing—”

  Raesinia moved. Her hand came up, grabbing the long knife that pinned her and ripping it out with a spray of blood. At the same time, she kicked out, her foot catching Ionkovo on the shin. He fell sideways, swearing in Murnskai, and Raesinia scrambled to her hands and knees, blood drooling from the gash on her chest and splattering on the floor. The binding was already at work, stitching together the shredded scraps of tough muscle, though it was hampered somewhat by the need to keep her limbs moving as well.

  She reached the doorway and felt another impact, a short-bladed throwing knife that sank into her stomach. Ionkovo stood up from the shadow of the sideboard, another blade in his hand. He tossed it in the air, idly, pinching the descending point between two fingers.

  “Honestly, Your Majesty, what do you expect to achieve?” he said. “You don’t think you can run from me, do you? The shadow road is faster than any horse or carriage.” He whipped the other knife across the room, and it appeared like magic in Raesinia’s shoulder. Metal grated against bone as she moved.

  “Then again,” Ionkovo said, “still trying when you ought to have given up the ghost is more or less your specialty, isn’t it?”

  Raesinia felt her heart start again with a lurch, and she took a gasping breath. She pulled the knife from her gut with another gush of blood and threw it left-handed at Ionkovo. Her aim was way off, and the weapon clattered handle-first against the wall. The Penitent laughed.

  “Points for effort,” he said. “But not much else.”

  The binding sparkled throughout her body, repairing her muscles, leaving the shredded skin and intestine for later. Raesinia pulled the other knife from her shoulder, threw it as well, and ran, keeping the dining room table between herself and Ionkovo. She feinted toward the door to the stairwell, then turned back, running for the small bedroom. She’d nearly made it when an arm reached out from a shadow near the floor and slashed a blade across the back of her foot. The leg gave way, and she toppled to the floor, just inside the doorway.

  Raesinia crawled forward determinedly until she’d made it to the servant’s bed. She used it to pull herself to a sitting position, the long blade that had skewered her still in her right hand. Her left dug frantically in her pocket. The light from the window cast long, deep shadows, and Ionkovo pulled himself out of one of them like a man emerging from a swim.

  “And now what?” he said. “Back the other way? I must say, I’m having fun.”

  “Do you know what your problem is?” Raesinia said with a savage grin. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth.

  Ionkovo leaned forward. “Enlighten me.”

  Raesinia threw the long blade in her right hand. It still wasn’t accurate, but it was better than she’d been left-handed, and Ionkovo reacted reflexively by stepping back into the safety of the darkness. As he did, Raesinia dragged the match in her left hand across the wood of the bed, sparking it to life.

  Flash powder, spread over the bed, caught instantly. Viera had spent all afternoon grinding a few handfuls of coarse gunpowder to a fine dust. It burned fast, flame crossing the room too quickly for the eye to follow with an explosive whoomph. They’d spread it across the floor as well, and all the furniture. It was so fine it had suffused the air, drifting and waiting for the slightest spark.

  There hadn’t been time to make very much of the stuff. Raesinia felt her skin heat and her eyebrows frizzle, but it wasn’t much more than you’d get peering into the mouth of a bakery oven. But it burned bright, and it was everywhere. For a moment there were no shadows in the room.

  She heard a strangled gurgle and a thump. After a few seconds, when the dazzling light had faded from her eyes and the tendon in her foot had reknotted itself, she got to her feet.

  Ionkovo had been stepping backward into the shadow when the flash had gone off. Its sudden vanishing had sliced him apart more neatly than any cutter could have managed, along a diagonal line roughly halfway up his torso. The half body had fallen on its side, and Raesinia could see heart, lungs, and other viscera, all neatly cross-sectioned, as though a master butcher had prepared a demonstration for his apprentices. Blood had splattered in torrents across the floor.

  “Your problem,” Raesinia said wearily, “is that you expect the same trick to work every time.”

  Muffled musketry continued to filter in from outside. Raesinia waited for a while, until the binding had closed her more obvious wounds and burns, then wrapped herself in a coat and went to see what was happening.

  —

  WINTER

  When Bobby could walk without wobbling, Alex eased open the door to their hiding spot, revealing a darkened corridor that to all appearances hadn’t been disturbed in years. The thief took the lead once again, moving in almost total silence, while Bobby and Winter shuffled along far enough behind her that their footsteps wouldn’t alert any watchers.

  The relatively short rest appeared to have refreshed Alex’s strength, and Bobby’s supernatural healing was as effective as usual, so Winter felt like she was the one holding the group back. In spite of Alex’s work, her arm shifted slightly in its sling as she walked, and each time it did it brought a surge of pain. She felt drained, as though someone had knocked out a cork and let all the strength leak out of her.

  Alex led the way through the maze of attic corridors, more by intuition and guesswork than actual knowledge. She kept them moving in the right direction, though, toward the back of the cathedral, where several stairways would lead down to the main floors and the streets outside. Footprints in the dust showed that some of the corridors had been searched, but they encountered no one.

  The first staircase they came to was a narrow, rickety thing, leading down at least four switchbacking flights. Winter gritted her teeth as they descended, moving as smoothly as possible to spare her arm any jouncing. They passed through a floor full of small stone cells that might have belonged to servants or apprentice priests, and down into the vast kitchens. Everything was dark, the braziers on the walls burned out and the great ovens extinguished. Alex slipped through the shadows to a back door, flipped the latch, and pulled it open.

  A naked woman, skeletally thin and turning blue from cold, stood on the other side, just inches away. Her gaunt face twisted into a rictus of a smile.

  “There—” she began, and one of Alex’s lances of shadow punched through her head. She collapsed, but another voice outside took up the sentence without a break.

  “—you are,” it said. “Searching the whole cathedral seemed impractical, so I decided to w
ait by the doors. I guessed—”

  Winter couldn’t see the speaker, but Alex raised her hand, and the voice cut off abruptly. Another picked up, a little farther away.

  “—you wouldn’t want to stay here indefinitely.” The Beast paused. “You know killing these bodies is pointless, don’t you? Do it all day if you like—I have plenty—but honestly, why bother?”

  “Alex, move,” Winter said. “We can’t fight them.”

  Alex stumbled out the door, with Winter and Bobby behind her. A narrow alley ran along the back of the cathedral, with a high wall on the other side. One end was blocked by an iron grating, but the other led out into a larger street, and Winter pointed that way. Several people, all near-naked, unhealthy-looking prisoners, stood along the rear wall of the cathedral and watched with interested but unconcerned expressions. When the Beast spoke, its voice moved smoothly from one to the next as Winter and the others ran past.

  “Winter always was—”

  “—the smart one. But I’m—”

  “—not sure what your plan is, here. Do—”

  “—you have any idea how big Elysium is?”

  “Bobby, grab her,” Winter said as they neared the street and passed by another thin woman. “Don’t let her look at us.”

  Bobby nodded and took the woman by the arm. She made no attempt to resist, but her eyes began to glow red, the Beast’s light shining forth and looking for a soul for grab on to. Bobby kept her own eyes shut until she’d gotten hold of the woman’s shoulders, forcing her to face away.

  I have to try. The prospect of engaging the Beast with Infernivore again made Winter cringe, but it was the only thing that had made the demon show any sign of fear. If I can destroy it . . .

  She laid her hand against the back of the woman’s neck and extended her will. Infernivore leapt forward with a mental snarl, but the shocking collision of demon against demon never came. Instead, the strand of the Beast that was inside the woman simply snapped as soon as Infernivore grabbed it, leaving her entirely empty. Infernivore retreated, unsatisfied. When Bobby let go, the woman collapsed, twitching weakly.

  “See?” a man’s voice said, farther down the alley. “Smart. But that’s not going to work.”

  I can’t get hold of them. When she’d used Infernivore on Jane, the two demons had clashed so fiercely the struggle had nearly ripped them both apart. But Jane is the center of the Beast, the nexus. These are just . . . limbs.

  “Shit.” Winter looked at Alex. “Can we get back to the tunnels?”

  “The white building ought to be that way.” Alex pointed to the right, down a street lined on both sides by low timber houses with peaked slate roofs. They looked cozy and well kept up; Winter guessed this was a part of the fortress-city where priests or senior servants had lived. Many of the doors stood open, and inside she could see the same signs of hasty evacuation that had been so obvious in the archives of the Priests of the White. So the White and the Red ran from Janus, and the Black unleashed the Beast . . .

  Four or five people had collected behind them in the alley. In the direction Alex had pointed, there were two more, but they were jogging away.

  “It knows it needs more bodies to have a chance against you and Bobby,” Winter said.

  “That’s right!” a voice called from behind them. “Straight out of your tactics manual. Never engage recklessly.”

  “We have to get clear before it collects itself,” Winter said. “Time to run.”

  Every step across the uneven, snow-covered cobblestones was an agony. Bobby and Alex pulled ahead, then slowed, waiting for Winter to catch up. Damn, damn, damn. The Beast was keeping pace easily behind them, though one of the unhealthy-looking prisoners had simply collapsed in the middle of the road. None of the others made any attempt to help him.

  Another street junction loomed. Alex pointed left, then slowed as at least two dozen people appeared from that side, rounding the corner in a loose group. Unlike the Beast’s bodies thus far, they carried impromptu weapons, lengths of wood, pokers, and chunks of stone. Behind them, Winter could see more priests and half-dressed prisoners filing out of houses.

  “This way!” Bobby shouted, turning in the opposite direction. Alex and Winter followed, now running nowhere but away. The streets were a neat grid spreading out behind the cathedral, so every hundred feet they came to an intersection. Packs of armed men blocked one way after another, though none of them made any attempt to attack.

  “They’re . . . herding . . . us,” Winter managed, through teeth gritted against her pain.

  Alex nodded. “We can try to break through them.”

  “It’ll have reserve lines,” Winter said.

  That was in the tactics manual, too. It’s too fast, damn it. Against a human opponent, speed and confusion always offered a chance for a small force against a large one, especially in a crowded city like Elysium. But the Beast had no need to send messengers with reports and orders. Its soldiers moved like the limbs of a single body, responding fluidly and instantly. God Almighty. If it was in command of a real army, it would be unstoppable.

  Her mind was wandering. Pain and exhaustion. Now her lungs burned, and her skin felt ice-cold. Her legs were wobbly, as though her bones had turned to noodles. Her arm was the center of her world, a reservoir of pain that sloshed over with every step.

  Bobby turned a corner and practically ran into a black-robed man, who reached out to grab her arm. His eyes glowed red, but she averted her gaze in time. She gripped his arm in turn and twisted, audibly snapping the bone with a casual motion before shoving him away. Alex raised her hands, and shadow lines cut down two people beyond him. But there were more, at least twenty. Winter turned to look in the other direction, ready to run, and found another group blocking them. The gang that followed them had grown with every turn, a hundred people or more, most of them holding clubs and stones.

  “Brass Balls of the fucking—” Winter stopped, mid-profanity. One of the Beast’s bodies laughed, and Alex cut the man down with a beam of darkness, but another picked it up, and then another. The three women backed against the facade of one of the houses, now surrounded by a vast semicircle of cackling pursuers.

  “Inside!” Alex said.

  She shattered the door handle with a flick of shadow, pushed the door open, and slipped in. Winter and Bobby followed. The bottom floor of the house was a single room, with a table and chairs, a fireplace in one wall, a wooden staircase, and another door leading to a small storeroom. Nothing we can use and no way out.

  Alex jammed the door shut, and almost at once it began to shudder with impacts from the outside. There was a window, tightly shuttered, and that began to vibrate, too.

  “Upstairs?” Alex said. But there was a slight quaver in her voice.

  “Go upstairs, get to the roof, and get out of here,” Winter said.

  “But—”

  “Remember what I told you?”

  “She’s right,” Bobby said. “If you can get away, do it.”

  Winter drew her sword in her good hand as fingers pried the shutters apart. “Just promise me you’ll bring everyone back here and kill this thing.”

  Alex ran to the stairs. Halfway up, she stopped at the sound of splintering wood; the attackers had torn one of the shutters away, ripping through the oiled cloth that served in place of glass. Winter slashed down at the groping hands, sending fingers spinning.

  “Just go!” Winter screamed. Alex gave a frustrated shout and ran.

  Now what? For a moment, a strange peace seemed to descend. Would it be better to die or to let the Beast take me? Her sword slashed instinctively, leaving long cuts on hands and arms. A big man grabbed the sill with both hands and tried to pull himself through, and Winter brought her blade down on his skull. A mistake, she realized immediately. The weapon bit several inches into the tough bone and stuck, and even as the man slumped
forward, half in and half out of the window, two smaller women in prisoner’s rags climbed over his back. Winter gave ground, looking for anything else she could use as a weapon.

  Bobby slammed into one of the women shoulder-first, sending her flying across the room to hit the plaster with a wet smack. The other attacker brought a length of wood down on Bobby’s shoulder, but it seemed to have no effect at all, and Bobby’s return punch sent her spinning to the floor. Grabbing the solid board she’d wielded, Bobby turned back to the door, which was now jammed open by a flood of attackers. Winter backed up against the fireplace and picked up the poker as Bobby laid out two boys in servants’ robes with fast blows of her club.

  Sergeant Red was the next one through the door. Half her freckled face was purpling into a huge bruise, but she grinned at Bobby and spread her hands.

  “Going to kill me, too, Bobby?” Red said. “Go ahead.”

  No, no, no, no—Winter opened her mouth to scream a warning, but it was too late. Bobby checked her swing just for an instant, showing the slightest hesitation to smash in that friendly, familiar face. That was enough. Red bulled in close, putting one arm around Bobby’s waist, as though they were dancing. Her other hand took hold of a big clay jug hanging by a strap on her back, which she jerked free and brought down on Bobby’s skull. It shattered, the contents gushing all over the two of them. Bobby, her hair plastered flat, looked more surprised than hurt.

  Another of the Beast’s bodies, a heavily scarred prisoner with only one arm, pushed through the door with a flaming brand. Winter tried to reach him, but more attackers got in her way, threatening to grab her as she clubbed them wildly with the poker. The scarred man lurched forward, flailing with his torch, and scored a glancing blow on Bobby’s shoulder. The stuff from the clay jug ignited at once, flames engulfing Bobby and Red as they spun together in the center of the room. Drops spattered to the floor and on the table, and small fires started there, too, but Winter only had eyes for Bobby. She was screaming, inaudible over the roar of the flames, beating wildly at Red with both hands. Winter’s throat was a mass of pain, and it was only then she realized she was screaming, too.