Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  A few people were still shooting back.

  Half a dozen dog-things surged around the LongHOG. She bashed their heads with the butt of the Myxilite.

  A small group of human figures struggled out of the rubble of the building. None of them was Dave, and the dog-things were leaving them alone.

  She slid down into the turret, heaved the lid shut, kicked her legs out of the saddle, fell against the back of the driver’s seat. “What are you bloody waiting for? Drive!”

  The driver twisted around, snarling in panic. A pistol lurched up. She clamped both hands over the barrel and threw her weight forward. The bullet ricocheted into the tin-can darkness behind her. She twisted down. The pistol came out of their hands and skidded away on the floor. The driver tried to headbutt her, then got his door open and jumped. The dog-things got him before he hit the ground. Leonie hurled herself feet first across the driver’s seat. Teeth snatched at her trainer, just missing her toes. She kicked, lost the trainer, slammed the door on the dog-thing’s head.

  Ignition. Clutch. Gearshift.

  The LongHOG’s heavy-duty wipers were still going, flicking calmly at the snow. It climbed the rubble, bouncing and swaying.

  The dog-things scattered in pursuit of easier game.

  When she’d driven as far forward as she could, Leonie idled the engine, fished around on the floor for the driver’s pistol, slid out.

  Dave’s body had been sheltered from the building’s collapse by the last intact piece of the roof. He looked unhurt but he was dead. She got his collar open and confirmed the ID number below his brand. That was that, then.

  She heaved him onto her shoulders, staggered back to the LongHOG, and laid him on the floor in the back. Her trainer-less left foot was numb, her sock shredded into bloody rags. She borrowed Dave’s boots and sat beside him to put them on. He’d been small for a man. His boots fit her as close as made no difference. She crawled back to the driver’s seat and put the LongHOG in gear.

  It was difficult not to run over the pieces of pointyheads lying in the rubble. The snow was red in splotches. Whichever way she went, she was driving into the floodlights, blinded.

  A dark shape wandered ahead of her on two legs, not four. She braked, then realized how daft she was being. If it was still moving, it was enemy.

  She accelerated. Her teeth jarred together. The LongHOG was not built for speed but even so, even over rough ground, it was faster than a human being. She ploughed down saplings, closing in on the fleeing figure. Then she saw there were two people ahead of her. The other was the little boy from the Aching Head estate. She overtook them. The man was hobbling, favoring his left leg.

  Leonie jumped out.

  “Val Sullivan, senior reliquary expert,” she said in shock.

  “Sorry?”

  “Never mind. You don’t know me.”

  The floodlights went dark. Night-blind, Leonie fumbled for the little boy’s hand and pulled him towards the LongHOG. She was scared to linger with the dog-things still in the area. “You’re too little to be out here. Come on, come with me and we’ll get you back to your mum and dad.”

  “My father is dead.” To her astonishment, the child sounded nobly born.

  “Your mum, then.”

  “I don’t think she wants me back.”

  “Where’s Alyx O’Braonain, then? D’you know who she is?”

  “She ran away.”

  “That’s the cherry on the bloody cake, eh? Oh, well. Come on, hop in the vehicle before those fey brutes come back.”

  The little boy glanced nervously at Val Sullivan, the IMF man whom Leonie had last seen making a surreptitious exit from the Queen Sabrina estate in Southwark.

  “Don’t need your permission, cock,” she told him.

  He drew himself up and made a show of looking confident and commanding. “Leonie Grant.”

  She froze. How did he know her name?

  “You do have a knack for being in the wrong place at the right time. But I am very glad to see you. I owe you a great deal, and I will soon owe you more, if you do as I say.”

  Bloody hell, he sounds noble, too!

  Before she could react, Sullivan’s face and his whole demeanor changed. So did his diction. “Quick! Listen to me! I’m not me. I am but I’m not. Don’t do anything I say. I—” His face contorted with pain.

  Barmy.

  “I understand,” she said with fake sympathy, and then kicked him in his bad leg. “You can get yourself into the vehicle or stay here for the dog-things to tear you apart. It’s all one to me.”

  “They’re hounds of Hell,” he said wretchedly. “Donnchla broke the circle when he died. His body fell across it, smudged the runes to shite. They got out. You must cut their bodies into quarters, burn them, and scatter the ashes in running water.”

  “Raving.” She boosted the little boy into the cab of the LongHOG. Val Sullivan hobbled towards the vehicle. Apparently he wanted to come with them, after all. She waited for him to get in the back with Dave’s body before getting in herself and driving off, and that took the very last bit of compassion she had left.

  She drove back towards the command center. Headlights fingered the dark. Shouts rose up. She stopped the LongHOG and got out. She pulled the little boy along with her by the hand. Val Sullivan floundered after them. Suddenly he shouted. “Mihal! Mihal!”

  The approaching figure was the weird black-haired bloke who’d been cavorting around the perimeter earlier. He embraced Val Sullivan, talking a mile a minute.

  “Oh, all right then,” Leonie said blankly.

  “I t-t-think that’s Bob Griffin’s limo,” the little boy said. His teeth were chattering. “It’s got a bonnet ornament in the shape of a g-g-griffin, do you see? My mother used to say that was in very p-p-poor taste.”

  Crown Army soldiers surged around the limo. Someone stood on its roof. A woman. The soldiers were firing their rifles into the air, shouting.

  Leonie stood in the snow and listened.

  Shouting? No, chanting. “Madelaine! Madelaine Wessex! Madelaine! Wessex! Long live the queen!”

  63

  Ran

  Two Minutes Later

  Ran sprinted to his mother.

  She crushed him in her arms, smelling of perfume and cigarettes, the familiar smell he’d always half-dreaded and half-loved. Her face was wet. His face was wet, too, but with cold snow, not warm tears.

  “Oh, my baby boy. I thought I should never see you alive again.”

  Ran stood stiffly in her embrace. It was too little, too late. “Where’s Guy?”

  “Darling, we must get you out of these wet clothes. I have much to do …” She nodded past him, and he saw Bob Griffin standing with his head hanging, arrested by his own constables. There were other men under guard, too. He did not see Alyx. “But those knaves can wait. Come, get into the car before you catch cold.”

  “It’s all right, Mother. I shan’t catch cold.” He was no longer incurable. She no longer had to be ashamed of him. But for some reason, he didn’t feel like telling her about the River of Sticks and Alyx and everything. “Where’s Guy?”

  Her grip tightened on his arms. “Guy is safe.”

  “Where is he? He went to war to rescue me, I know that. What happened, Mother?”

  “Darling, he—he is in captivity at the Tower of London.”

  Shocked by the news, Ran jerked his gaze away from her. He saw that the woman standing on a jeep was his grown-up cousin Madelaine. She was laughing and shouting to be heard over the racket the soldiers were making. For the first time, Ran made out the words of their chant. “Madelaine! Wessex! Wessex! Wessex! Long live the queen!”

  “Yes, the Crown Army has acclaimed her already,” his mother said. “And what the Crown Army wants, the Comity of Lords cannot very well deny them. However, you and I still have some bargaining power. Come.”

  This time, he let her guide him to the car. It was one of their own limousines, with Sauvage-green leather seats. The chau
ffeur smiled broadly and touched his cap to Ran. In the back, his mother put a rug around his shoulders. She tried to press a warm drink on him, but he shook his head. The warm, luxurious cocoon felt all wrong, after he’d spent so long living rough—well, only a week or so, but it felt like a long time. He’d rather have been back at Val’s granny’s house, he thought.

  “Madelaine will call Parliament, and the lords will acclaim her as queen,” Mother said.

  “That’s not fair! She isn’t the true queen!”

  He’d wielded Worldcracker, however briefly, and now that he was back in his own world, it sank in what that meant. He was the true king. The soldiers should have been acclaiming him in Madelaine’s place.

  The thought made him shudder and shrink into his rug. Madelaine was welcome to it.

  “No, she is not the true queen,” his mother agreed. “But who cares, darling? She is a Wessex. Forget all that nonsense about magical swords and mystical mandates. Continuity is the key to peace. However, there will be some resistance to the notion of a queen. We haven’t had one in several hundred years.”

  “Alyx thought she could be queen,” Ran mumbled.

  His mother looked sharply at him, but said, “Yes, precisely. People associate the idea of a queen with trouble. And that is how we shall sway them, and save our House, you and I.”

  She’d never spoken to him like this before, as if he could understand the ins and outs of the political game. It was flattering, but it also alarmed him.

  “The truth, my darling, is that you have as good a claim the throne as she does. You are Tristan’s eldest male heir.”

  “What about Cousin Michael?”

  His mother took his hand. “Michael is dead.”

  “Oh!”

  “He was suffocated in his bed. A foul, unforgivable crime. And they are saying … that Guy did it.”

  “He didn’t.” Ran had never even met his cousin Michael. He could not really grieve for him, but the insult to Guy’s honor stung cruelly. “He couldn’t have.”

  “Of course he didn’t do it. But our noble friends—” her voice dripped with irony— “wish to break the power of House Sauvage. Fools! We are key to the safety of the realm. And I will see Guy walk free.”

  “Can’t we just ask Cousin Madelaine to pardon him?”

  “That would be tantamount to an admission that he did it. No, his honor must be satisfied. The Stuarts must apologize, in public, for having accused him. And we can make them do it. You can make them do it, Ran.”

  “How?”

  “In exchange for this thing, you must give up your claim to the throne.”

  Her eyes were bright and nervous. She believed she was asking a huge boon of him.

  Ran laughed joyously. His mother believed he must want to be king, but she did not understand anything.

  “Mother, I’d give up a hundred thrones to bring Guy safely home. Should I go and tell Cousin Madelaine now?”

  She caught him and kissed him, smiling in relief. “No, no. She doesn’t matter. Wait until we reach London.”

  Ran knew then what kind of queen his cousin would be. She would be as much a queen as Vivienne Sauvage allowed her to be, no more and no less.

  “I’d like to see Honor,” he said. “Can we have her brought to London?”

  His mother kissed him again. He was getting tired of it. She hadn’t loved him before. Why should she love him now? “That bloody dragon of yours! Yes, she shall be brought to London, if you wish it, mine heir,” she said, teasing.

  “Good.” He shivered. “I think after all, I’d like some cocoa.”

  64

  Ran

  A Week Later. December 7th, 1979

  A drizzle blotted out the view of the Thames. Ran knelt on the window seat of Guy’s room in their Isle of Dogs house, watching Guy pack.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “I must.”

  “Please.”

  “The whole realm thinks me a child-killer.”

  “Lord Stuart apologized to you!”

  “That was a comic turn, not an apology. With his lying mouth he apologized. With his damned smirking face he made it clear to the whole realm that it was mere lip service to my House. The whole realm hates me now.”

  “Who cares what they think?” Ran hugged his knees tightly.

  Guy backed out of his closet, his arms filled with folded clothes. “We must give the people what they want,” he drawled. “It was a condition of my release that I should leave the realm.”

  Ran punched the window seat in anger. “That’s not fair!”

  Guy nodded. “Mother sold your birthright for my freedom, but she sold it rather cheaply.”

  Ran bit his lip. Guy stuffed clothes into his trunk. He had refused to let any of the servants help him with this. He was taking light-colored things, shorts and short-sleeved shirts. A trickle of Bermuda sand spilled from the folds of a cloak not worn since their last summer on the privately owned Sauvage island. Ran’s throat tightened at the reminder of happier days. “Guy, are you going to Bermuda?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Stop it, Ran!” Guy suddenly roared. “I’m not allowed to tell you! Stop asking!”

  Colin Argent came into the room, lugging a heavy case. He raised his eyebrows, having heard Guy’s shout. “He won’t tell me, either,” he said to Ran.

  Ran twisted his head away. He stared out morosely at the yard behind the manor house. Rain dripped from the eaves of the mews.

  “Here are those pistols you wanted, Guy,” Colin said, dumping the case on the floor. “Dear, dear … aren’t you going to take any books at all?”

  “Guy doesn’t like stupid books,” Ran said, without turning around.

  “Not even the Chronicles of the Worldcracker?”

  “That’s the stupidest book ever written!” It used to be Ran’s favorite. Now that he’d held the real Worldcracker in his hands, he knew how false all the stories of heroism were.

  Colin switched on the television in the corner. The noise of Parliament filled the room. “I don’t want to watch that farce,” Guy said, but he didn’t turn it off.

  Reluctantly, Ran turned to glance at the screen. Madelaine had called Parliament for the first time in decades. It had been their mother’s idea, really. The lords were giving Madelaine a hard time. Ran almost felt sorry for her. She looked very fragile and pretty in her black skirt suit.

  “Ouch,” Colin said, as Lord Norfolk asked Madelaine a difficult question about the bond markets. “But not to worry. The fix is in. She’ll be acclaimed by two hundred and ninety-three to one.”

  “Who’ll be the one?” Ran said.

  “Gordon Stuart, of course. We may have trouble from that House in the future.”

  Guy fastened the clasps of his trunk. “Ring for Duffy, Colin. I’ll need some help carrying everything down to the boat.”

  Ran slid off the windowsill. He hated doing this in front of Colin, but he saw that Colin wasn’t going away, so he had no choice. This was his last chance. “Take me with you!”

  Guy scowled. He’d cut his hair short already, so they matched. Ran rushed across the room and seized his sword arm.

  “Please! Please! I don’t want to be the king, anyway. I don’t even want to be the Lord Protector of Ireland. I don’t want to be an earl. I want to be a knight—like you! Please, please let me come!”

  Guy’s eyes glittered. His adam’s apple worked. “No,” he said, roughly thrusting Ran away. “You belong here.”

  “This isn’t my world anymore,” Ran shouted. “But of course it doesn’t matter what I want.”

  Just before he dashed out of the room, he saw Colin watching him with hard eyes, as if he were an adult.

  65

  Leonie

  At The Same Time

  Madelaine was talking about the economy now. This was obviously not her strong point. She sounded like a child reciting a lesson.

  “She looks a frig
ht,” Maddy said, coming back from the kitchen with a plate of tea cakes. “Whatever you do, Lee-Lee, don’t get any ideas about setting up as a hair stylist.”

  “Wonder why she isn’t wearing a hairpiece?” Mystie said, cuddling baby Bryanna.

  “Our Lee-Lee could have been there,” Una told Mrs Lyle and Mrs Daggort, who had ‘just popped in’ and declined to sit down, which was wise, since there wasn’t anywhere left to sit. And how can they all be sitting here, arguing with the telly and eating cakes, when Dave is dead? “She had an invitation from the princess herself,” Una went on. “Delivered by a blooming courier in livery. And she turns up her nose at it. Tears it up, if you please, and drops it in the rubbish. Lovely thick paper it was, with the royal crest, so I saved it, look. There’s only a little tea-leaf stain on the edge …”

  Tollan, exiled to a hard chair in the corner, chuckled. Leonie met his eyes and felt comforted. He wasn’t Dave’s natural father, yet he seemed to be the only one willing to acknowledge the depth of the family’s loss. He hadn’t given her a hard time about not going to Parliament.

  “We’d have gone,” Harlan said, sitting on the floor at her feet. “Wouldn’t we, Bast?”

  “You should have gone, Lee-Lee!” Bastian agreed. “All the top knights are there. You could’ve gotten their autographs.”

  “The fellows at school would’ve died of jealousy.”

  Pod clouted Bastian lightly. “You don’t ask for autographs at court, my lad. Anyway, there might be other chances. Mightn’t there, Leonie?”

  She shrugged, cross and grateful at once. She couldn’t remember why she’d invited him now. It was an unspoken rule that you didn’t let other operators into your family life. But so what? She was no longer an operator. And it had to be admitted, he fitted in. Harlan and Bastian had latched onto him, showing him their albums of tourney cards and play-wrestling him, as if he were a new, improved Dave. As if he were stepping into their dead brother’s place.