Empire of Bones

by N. D. Wilson

  Snatches of Bellamy’s shouting made it through the glass and were carried away on the lake breeze.

  done everything … ratbag thinks he can do … now … lies … promised me … dingoes listening … dragons toss … ending you … all ending

  Bellamy flipped over the couch and tore into a string of Australian curses. The three men didn’t move.

  Rupert drew his revolver and handed it to Cyrus.

  “You fly past and put a few in the windows,” Rupert whispered. “Niffy, help him launch the flier. Then we drop through the ceiling for hand-to-hand.”

  Niffy nodded approval.

  Cyrus shook his head. “Fly that little thing? Then what?”

  Rupert dug a small string-cinched pouch out of his pocket. “Your Quick Water,” he said. “Fly as far as you have fuel, then hunker down until Di and your sis can get back for you.”

  “Rupe,” Cyrus said, taking the pouch. “I’m not leaving you here. No more splitting up.”

  Rupert grabbed the back of Cyrus’s neck and leaned forward, staring into Cyrus’s eyes.

  “Here I stand,” Rupert said quietly. “Here I fall. If my vows mean anything, they mean this. I cannot turn away from the blood spilled today.”

  He smacked Cyrus’s aching head and pushed him away.

  “Quickly,” he said. “The roof won’t be ours for long.”

  Cyrus backed up the slope with the heavy revolver hanging in his hand. Niffy jogged past him. This didn’t make sense. Tonight, Rupert Greeves fought for Ashtown. Without allies. The Captain should be here. And Nolan. And Arachne and Diana and Dan and the Livingstones and the Boones and Gunner and Dennis. They weren’t much, but they were something. They were loyal and tough and … they were friends. Polygoners.

  Rupert looked back and waved Cyrus away. He and a thick Irish monk—no friend at all—were going into their Alamo.

  While he, Cyrus, flew away.

  And suddenly, Cyrus understood. He understood all the frustration he’d seen in his Keeper in the last weeks, the struggle, the anger. Rupert Greeves, Blood Avenger of the Order of Brendan, Ashtown Estate, was a protector, a guard, a shepherd. Rupert Greeves was no general. Generals spend men. Generals expect sacrifice from those who stand with them. Shepherds do not lead their sheep into battle with wolves. They fight alone.

  Rupert had never settled on a path because down every path, he saw the deaths of others, the deaths of those he had sworn to die protecting—the deaths of his sheep. Some of his people had died anyway, and now Rupert saw a path open in front of him—a path that led to only one death. The only life Rupert Greeves would gladly spend was his own. Only that path offered him peace of soul.

  Cyrus felt his heart thumping, and the hot anger began in his legs, tingling where the wind touched him. Heat roared up into his chest and pounded in his aching head. Niffy hissed at him, waiting. Rupert’s eyes were on Cyrus’s, quiet and peaceful and patient. And Cyrus knew something else.

  Rupert would never wait for Niffy. As soon as they were out of sight, they would hear glass shatter behind them as Rupert went in alone.

  Cyrus’s eyes were hot. It couldn’t be this way. They had to fight Phoenix and Radu Bey and they had to win. People would die. But people were surely dying now, wherever Phoenix was. People would be dying wherever Radu Bey might have gone, unchained.

  He, Cyrus Smith, had to be what Rupert Greeves could never be—a general.

  He shall be called the Desolation.…

  The memory of Dan’s words sent tight chills up Cyrus’s neck.

  You, Cyrus. It’s about you.…

  And it started now.

  when he casts his shadow …

  Rupert was no longer the general.

  … even the dragon shall shrink in fear.

  Rupert Greeves was just one warrior, a warrior Cyrus had to be willing to risk. And if he died … Hot, wet anger rolled down Cyrus’s cheeks. He turned away and began to run.

  Niffy dropped off the low wall, and Cyrus dropped down after him. The monk was already untying the sandbag anchors.

  “Niffy.” Cyrus grabbed the monk’s robe. “Rupe is going in alone. Get back there now.” He was surprised at how calm his own voice sounded.

  The monk blinked surprise. Glass shattered.

  “Go!” Cyrus said.

  Niffy exploded back up the low wall and disappeared. Another life risked. Cyrus shoved the revolver into his belt and flipped open Sterling’s bone-handled knife. The ropes that held down the flier were weatherworn and parted quickly. Sandbags slumped to the ground, and black wingtips bounced up.

  He could hear shouting. Gunfire.

  The ropes were all cut and he gave the little flier a shove. It was heavier than it looked, and hidden down between two roof peaks. There was no way he was pushing it up. But he couldn’t imagine that Sterling would be able to, either.

  Cyrus ducked under the black cloth wing and slid into the little wire cage, spread his legs around the controls, and dropped into the seat. He didn’t bother with the over-the-shoulder buckle.

  There were two small pedals for steering, but there was no tail or rudder anywhere on the little thing, so he had no idea how they would work. The two fat silver tubes below him on either side had to be engines. The stick between his knees was obviously the throttle, and it had a trigger and thumb button—both under hinged plastic covers. Were there guns on this thing? He didn’t have time to care. He had to start it. Now. Groping around beneath his seat, he felt a tank—fuel—and then he found a small box. It opened. Yes. A key and switch.

  A dragonfly shot past him. And another. He looked back toward the statues where he had first climbed up, and he saw shapes moving—a line of men, spread out, sweeping the rooftops.

  Cyrus turned the key and flipped the switch.

  The two silver tubes beneath him woke up, first with a yawn, then with a tornado roar. Leaves whirled up behind him and the little flier shook and bounced.

  Cyrus glanced back at the rooftop hunters. He saw guns flash and arms wave, but he couldn’t hear the shots or the shouts.

  He held his breath, clenched his teeth, and threw the throttle.

  The flier jumped forward into the pitched roof, banged its nose, tipped back, and then launched up and off the peak.

  Cyrus should have buckled in. He was in the air, the flier was dropping, nose down, and he was still floating up. Grabbing at the stick, he managed to level it out and slammed back down into his seat.

  The lake breeze pushed him inland. He tried to bank back toward the water. His pedals changed the direction of the engine thrust beneath him. The stick between his legs either bent in or released the cloth wingtips. Used together, he turned so sharply that he simply stopped in the air, and then began to drop into a glide.

  Cyrus liked this thing. A lot. He accelerated past the buildings and wheeled back around over the airstrip.

  The little Quick Water shook in his shirt pocket. The bigger lump was wobbling against his hip.

  “Not now, Arachne!” Cyrus yelled, and the quivering stopped. He brought the flier in level with the Brendan’s glowing windows and slowed until he was practically hanging in the air.

  The room was a shambles. Rupert and Niffy were both on their feet, pressing against at least twelve men armed with guns and long knives. Rupert used only a sword and it was a blur in his hand. He was moving faster than Cyrus had ever seen, a man exploding forward into the teeth of Death. Niffy stayed beside him as they moved over a carpet of bodies. Niffy spun the black-bladed sword in one hand, and his dead master’s patrik flashed like golden fire in the other.

  Thirty feet from the windows, Cyrus banked slightly and floated down the length of the Brendan’s rooms. Bellamy Cook stood alone, behind the brawl, watching with a gun in hand. Cyrus tugged his own revolver out of his belt. He handled the stick with his left hand and aimed the big gun with his right. He cocked the hammer and tried to steady the long barrel as he drifted and bounced on the breeze. He fired.
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br />   Three times, the gun jumped in his hand. Three windows shattered, and Bellamy dropped into a crouch. Cyrus had missed badly. He throttled the flier up over the statues and banked away in a loop to come back around.

  A dragonfly banked with him, and Cyrus looked down at the line of rooftop hunters. They had reached the statues at the edge of the building. A few were already dropping into the Brendan’s rooms. Reinforcements. The others were raising guns toward Cyrus. He had to work faster.

  As Cyrus dropped level with the roof, he slipped his finger under the trigger cover on the stick, hoping for something.

  Twin white fireballs corkscrewed down into the statues, splattering light and heat among the stone winged creatures that guarded Ashtown. The statues flashed with angelic fire, and shadows tumbled and rolled and fell into the darkness below. Cyrus nosed forward and then banked along the roofline, firing the whole way, close enough to feel the heat on his face and to nick an angel with his own wing.

  Bright images seared onto his eyes—the angry faces of weather-stained stone warriors suddenly enlightened, and living men tossed by living flame.

  Engines humming, wings bouncing, Cyrus accelerated away into cool darkness. Behind him, the roof smoked like a volcano. Below him, men now fired up from the ground. White fire that was not his own swirled up past his wings and died slowly in flocks of small suns high above him, brightening the night. Bullets puckered the cloth of his wings.

  Ignoring the ground fire, Cyrus filled his lungs with lake-cooled autumn air and wheeled his little flier back around.

  Rupert was fighting from his knees. Niffy was down, back up, and down again. The men they were facing now were hardly men at all. They were the Reborn.

  Cyrus pointed his nose toward the first windows he had shot out and throttled forward. He sent two fireballs toward the Brendan’s rooms and then switched from the trigger on the stick to the thumb button on top.

  With a sound like air cannons, twin pipes beneath the flier’s wings spat a pair of small spiraling football shapes through the windows and into the white billowing furnace. His flier was right behind them. Too close.

  Boom.

  Glass shrapnel hit Cyrus in a cloud of sound. Cloth wings tore. The roof above the Brendan’s rooms bulged up and then collapsed. Two of the great angelic statues teetered and fell. Cyrus ducked, covering his eyes, kneeing the throttle forward.

  He felt the first jerk of impact. He heard metal scream and glass shatter. He felt himself spinning and floating out of his plane, passing through heat.

  Cyrus Smith skipped across the top of a long table, caught his leg in a chandelier, tore it from the ceiling, and then slammed into a wall.

  Behind him, a huge stone wing and arm punched down through the ceiling, smashed the table, and disappeared into the floor, caving it in all around it. Cyrus slid down the sloping floor and thumped into the statue. He blinked, expecting unconsciousness. Expecting painlessness. Darkness. Sleep. But it didn’t come. He could hear slow crackling fire, beams groaning beneath enormous weight, water spattering somewhere, and one man coughing.

  “Rupe?” Cyrus sat up, grabbing his ribs. His right hand still clutched the revolver, his fingers locked as tight as the claws of a corpse. He managed to hook his gun hand over the top of a huge stone angel feather and fought his way to his feet.

  “Rupe!”

  The coughing stopped.

  Cyrus climbed up onto the angel and crawled forward through the smoking, sparking rubble, pushing through dangling ceiling plaster.

  “Rupe!” Cyrus shouted. “Answer me now!”

  “I told you,” Rupert said quietly. “Fly away.”

  Cyrus’s eyes were streaming rivers down his cheeks, trying to flush away smoke and rubble and grit. “You said to fly as far as it would take me.” Cyrus slid beneath a beam, and dust avalanched down onto the back of his neck. “Well, it took me this far.”

  He could see into the front room now. His little flier was a crumpled mess, the frame bent, the wings torn into tattered black flags. Wind from the lake blew in through blasted-out windows, stirring smoke and pushing low flames across carpets and couches and up the walls. On the few unbroken windows, the flames reflected, warped and flickering like surreal liquid. A shape too quick to be friendly darted across one of the reflections.

  Cyrus froze, blinking, holding his breath. Slowly, he pulled back the hammer on the revolver. The reflection moved again.

  A man stepped out from behind a slab of rubble that had once been ceiling but now rose from the floor like a wall. His hair was gone, and his bone tattoos were hidden beneath his charred skin. Blood oozed down his neck from a fluttering gill. He held a long knife.

  Another man, shorter and broader but also one of Phoenix’s Reborn, moved into view beside them. His face was a swollen, bloody mess. His jaw was broken and dangling open, but it didn’t seem to bother him. None of Phoenix’s sons were much affected by pain.

  Cyrus heard Rupert groan. He rose slowly into view from behind a toppled sofa, his sword raised. He was covered in dust, ghost-pale everywhere but where his wounds mixed the dust into bloody mud.

  “Weapons down,” Rupert said. “You are trespassers, enemies of the Order of Brendan, murderers of our brothers. Your lives are forfeit.”

  “You are the grandest nutter of them all, aren’t you, mate?” The accented voice belonged to Bellamy Cook, Brendan of the O of B. The rough, lean Australian limped into view from behind a pile of ceiling and wall. Cyrus had last seen him up close when Bellamy had put his name forward in the great Galleria for the office of Brendan, when he had stared at Cyrus and made his position clear on all things related to Smiths. That night, the transmortals had rioted. The next day, Cyrus and Antigone had gone on the run. They hadn’t stopped.

  Bellamy’s sharp eyes were hooded in his creased and grimy face. Gray stubble lined his jaw, and his mud hair, usually slicked straight back, now fell loose around his temples. His clothes were blackened, but Cyrus could see no wounds.

  Rupert inhaled slowly and coughed dust. “Bellamy Cook, Keeper from the Barrier Estate, who stands in this Order for Brendan, I name you murderer, traitor, oath breaker, and disciple of darkness. Stand before the Sages to receive your judgment, or stand before me and die.”

  Bellamy laughed and then winced, grabbing at his side. “Rupert Greeves, still playing at lords and ladies and dead saints and oaths. So serious, mate. What is darkness? Tell me. Do you even know?”

  Rupert hobbled forward a step. “You brought in these flesh-mixed monsters to kill your own people.”

  “The Breed,” Bellamy said. “That’s what we call them. The Reborn. And shortly I shall proudly join them.” He smiled. “To be honest, mate, I hurt. I know you do, too, but look at them—barbecued and battered and they’ll still have your throat out in half a tick. And the eyes, the endurance, the speed, the strength. I look forward to it. Of course, you should know that I didn’t bring them in to kill my people. I brought them in to kill those bloody Cryptkeepers. Couldn’t have them creeping about, or worse, joining up and ousting me. Not that it matters now.”

  Both of the Reborn moved to flank Bellamy. The shorter, thicker man with the shattered jaw passed in front of what remained of Cyrus’s flier. From beneath one crumpled wing, the golden patrik struck, snapping up and stretching long like a crackling electric wire. The stocky man snatched its head out of the air faster than Cyrus could even see. The snake wrapped around him and the two dropped to the floor.

  For a moment, Bellamy watched the struggle; then he cocked his head and looked beneath the flier. He nodded at the tall man with the bleeding gill.

  “Finish the fat monk.”

  Cyrus fired, and this time his hands were steady. The tall gillie crumpled, and the window behind him shattered—another gaping hole, open to the night.

  Rupert scrambled forward, grabbed the flier, and lifted. Niffy exploded up, blade raised, and Bellamy limped quickly backward. The monk ended the thick, gilled man on th
e floor and the golden snake shrank quickly, coiling up around Niffy’s arm in a bright spiral.

  Cyrus turned his gun toward the Brendan of his Order.

  Rupert marched after Bellamy, stepping over bodies. Cyrus stood up and followed, tripping and slipping as he did but keeping the gun on the chest of his target.

  “ ‘Not that it matters now’?” Rupert asked. “What does that mean? Why doesn’t it matter now?”

  “You can’t kill me,” Bellamy said. “You can’t break your vows.”

  “To kill you,” Rupert said, and his voice was ice, “is to keep my vows. You have declared war on your own people and mine. You conspired with their enemies. Blood runs in Ashtown and the knife is in your hand. If the Avengel of this Order cannot pluck your worthless life, then who can?”

  “You’re not Avengel,” Bellamy said. He backed into a buckled wall beside an open window and stopped. “There are no more Avengels.”

  Rupert raised his sword to the man’s chest. “I always knew you were a thief and a pirate, but I would not have called you a coward until now. Answer my question.”

  “Radu Bey is coming,” Bellamy said. “Phoenix has not forgotten to watch the dragons. They are coming. They will open the Burials and topple the walls and till the earth and take every life they find. The O of B will be no more. Ashtown will be destroyed.”

  “On your knees,” Rupert said. “Now.”

  Bellamy smiled grimly and shook his head. “You’re done, mate. All of you. Radu bloody Bey is coming, and he has what he needs to unleash every last sleeping hell beneath this place. And once he’s done his violence, Phoenix will make him kneel and fit him with a collar. He and his dragons will serve the Breed before this war ends and the world is remade.” The Brendan’s teeth were bright in his soot-stained face, and he leered at Cyrus. “Pity I won’t be here to watch the brutes peel open a Smith and feed. Boy, you won’t even be wearing skin when the sun rises.”

  Niffy stepped closer to Rupert. “Take the villain’s head or I will.”