by R J Theodore
The sound of a scuffle came from the streets above as she passed into the light beneath a storm drain. The Imperial troops were still searching for Hankirk’s devices, unaware of their captain’s fate.
Talis grit her teeth.
Fix this first, Dug would have said. Then fix me.
She sniffed, cleared her throat, and called up to those above. The shadow of feet halted. She heard low voices, and then the nearest grate lifted away. Sophie and Tisker peered down, backlit by golden skies.
“Captain?” Sophie’s nose wrinkled as she leaned over the sewer hole. “You need help up?”
Talis swallowed. There was less and less time for explanations. “Get down here. We’ve got to get to Hankirk.”
They exchanged dubious glances, but Tisker came down the ladder with no more hesitation than that, giving Sophie a minute to gather herself for the climb.
“We found two more bombs,” Sophie said, stepping carefully down the rungs. “They’re all on timers but not set for another twenty minutes. Like you thought, the first one was a trap meant to stop us from getting to the rest. No question.”
Talis helped her with the last step and handed Tisker one of the Yu’Nyun rifles.
“You got through to the Tempest, Cap?” There was relief in Tisker’s voice.
But Sophie interrupted. “Wait. Where’s Dug?”
“Do you still have any shards of crystal on you, Sophie?”
Sophie made a small choking sound, then dove for her pockets. She extracted one small, match-thin piece. “Is this enough?”
It was. No sooner had Talis opened the lid of her belt pouch, the quintessence leapt from it into the shard held close by in Sophie’s fingers. Its translucence turned the same magenta that Talis remembered all too well from Onaya’s unnatural eyes.
Tisker took a ragged breath as Talis tucked the splinter into the pocket and closed it again. “Where’s the rest of him?”
“With Onaya. This way.”
Without another sniffle, they followed her deeper into the tunnels.
Tisker and Sophie were far more optimistic about getting Dug back from Onaya Bone than Talis felt.
They hadn’t been there. Didn’t know how naturally Onaya took to the movements of his limbs, and how she’d wielded Dug’s blades with more lethal grace than he ever had. Onaya Bone had no intention of giving that body back.
“At least she can’t fly away anymore,” Tisker said. “All we need to do is catch up to her.”
Catch up to her and get her to drop the weapons? Talis wanted to believe him.
At the next intersection, she stopped and swung the torchlight down each tunnel, then cursed at the symmetrical options.
“I have no idea which way to go next. Where the hell are they? We’re under the castle, have been for twenty meters or so.”
Sophie cast her own torchlight along the floor. In the thin layer of gritty mud, scuffs and footprints led to and from the tunnel branching to their left.
“That way, Captain.”
A hoarse scream, high-pitched but powerful, echoed off the bricks and concrete. Coming from the darkness that swallowed the tunnel in the direction Sophie had picked.
“That sounds like a child!” Tisker took off running.
Talis and Sophie straightened and jogged after. Their torchlight bounced his shadows across the ceiling ahead of them. Even with their footsteps echoing all around, Talis could still hear the blood pound in her ears.
Emeranth’s violent, grotesque, bestial cries continued, guiding them along more turns and twists in the tunnel system. They grew louder. Closer.
A tremble started in Talis’s muscles. Her body wanted to stop. These were not the kinds of noises one ran toward. Not when the stone walls echoed the single voice until it sounded like an army of bloodthirsty zalika. Talis could feel the noise beneath her feet as she ran.
They reached an unlocked grated door, beyond which the tunnel walls opened into a larger chamber.
Inside, Hankirk knelt on the ground, crouched before one of his monstrous bombs. He wore combat-style pants and a jacket, pouches of gear around his waist. His prosthetic arm was missing, the sleeve on that side torn and empty. Over his good shoulder, a bandolier was strung with grenades. Talis was relieved to see they were the common variety. Not that it mattered, when Hankirk was kneeling before a gas bomb as big as the others.
His arm was wrapped around Emeranth. The heir of the Empire looked more like one of Subrosa’s street rats, in torn clothing and with wild, matted hair. Beneath the dirt and stains, Talis could see the hints of her garb’s former glory. Silk, in unidentifiable colors, with delicate embroidery of royal motifs.
A fraying ribbon hung from auburn hair, one end caught in the corner of her mouth as she attempted to bite Hankirk’s arm and face.
She was restrained with straps around her shoulders and wrists, but Hankirk struggled to get a gag in between her gnashing teeth. He made small noises of assurance, as though she could be calmed.
Talis lowered her rifle. He was too preoccupied to be an immediate threat. Emeranth almost managed to bite him on the side of his hand when he looked up at the sound of the gate crashing open against the tunnel wall.
“Help me hold her,” was all he said. His voice was calm, detached. Gentle, but absent of any sense, considering the situation.
That was why they were there, Talis had to remind herself. To do whatever it took to convince Hankirk not to carry out his plan. Their preparations for this moment seemed like a dusty remnant from another lifetime. She nodded curtly to Tisker and Sophie.
Tisker held the empress’s other shoulder while Sophie got the gag tied in place. The vicious noises quieted, though the girl was no less calm. Her nostrils flared as she growled around the fabric. Her muscles were tightened in the same way as Wallis’s had been, but it was ten times as horrifying to witness it ruin the innocence of a child. Sophie tied off her ankles for good measure.
With Emeranth secured, Talis grabbed Hankirk by the collar and shoved him back against the side of his bomb. Her other fist clenched at her side. She willed him to open his mouth and say something.
He obliged. “Help me save her.”
Her fist wasn’t enough. She brought up her elbow, snapping his head back with the upward strike. The point of his chin left a bruise in her arm she felt straight to the bone.
“It wasn’t enough to try to kill Dug to get what you want, you’d really kill thousands of innocents? Bomb them with that alien solution? Turn them all to beasts and monsters and demons. For what? For your revenge? Or is this how you ensure your master race bullshit? Is this what unity looks like to you? Genocide? Which is it, you son of a bitch?” She growled the words through clenched teeth an inch from his face. He didn’t meet her gaze.
But it wasn’t for shame. His focus locked on Emeranth in the care of Tisker and Sophie behind her.
Talis gave him another shake. “You hearing me in there?”
He looked up at the ceiling over their heads, then. Seeing beyond the brickwork overhead, to the tower rising above the city.
“There’s only one thing that can fix this now.”
His expression twitched, brows furrowed in anger, lower lip trembling in fear. But it was his eyes that startled her. His eyes were blank in surrender.
Talis had seen that look before, from before her life as a smuggler, when she worked as a hired gun for the highest bidders. In villages where war took everything a person had but wasn’t kind enough to take their lives as well. Hankirk was broken inside.
“Where is the ring, Hankirk?” She was going to lose him, or she was going to kill him. But first she was going to get some value out of his remaining life.
He stared dolefully, not hearing her. He was retreating somewhere where words and reason wouldn’t reach him, but she had to try. So she gave him a har
d slap. It did little more than the elbow to the jaw had done.
“Dammit, Hankirk, answer me!”
He brought his hand up, gripped in an odd fist. Too slow to be a strike. For a moment she thought he had the ring and would hand it over. But he moved his thumb against the top of something and, too late, she realized what he was doing. The safety cap flipped back on a wired remote.
She yelled back over her shoulder to Sophie and Tisker. “RUN!”
His gaze locked with hers, but he wasn’t seeing her.
“This will make them understand.” His thumb came down on the plunger.
The air erupted around them. Talis put her head down against Hankirk’s chest, using him to shield her from the blast. She felt the shudder of the explosion as it railed against his back. His chest and arm tightened, and he shook and twitched under the barrage. Shrapnel from the metal barrels and shards off the cooping rings of the ceramic ones sliced through Talis’s sleeves and the shoulders of her jacket, biting, tearing, and searing her flesh.
Hankirk wrapped his good arm around her shoulders, behind her neck, holding her to him and shielding her face. If something of him had returned, it was little good to her now. The grenades he wore pressed against her cheek as she struggled to turn her head for breath.
But there was no relief. The air went caustic. It clawed at her throat, ripping its way down her esophagus. Her body curled, she coughed, and it felt like she would never stop. She felt the hairs inside her nose singe, and her skin parched and pulled taut from the heat.
A cold shudder gripped her chest. A flap of wings, a flurry of panic. Something inside her came to life and fought for freedom.
She pushed away from Hankirk, her hands against his chest. He was shuddering, convulsing, arm over his head, pulling the front of his jacket over his face. Somehow, he was still alive. The air around them was on fire. The cloud of gas pooled just above their heads, thick and swirling.
Stumbling a few steps back, she tried to look for Tisker and Sophie. But her vision was green and myopic. The sigil Kirna tattooed on her—she should have needed a mirror to see it, but it was there, hanging in the air before her. The tendrils of light stretched below it. She felt a sharp tugging, as if at sutures on her chest. In her chest. At something not purely physical, somewhere very deep within her. Her stomach cramped, and she felt nauseated.
She started to weep and shiver, certain she was going to shrivel up and blow away. Join with the ash in the air around her and spread thin into nothing. She fell, landing hard on her tailbone, but her soul remained in the space above her, the tendrils now longer, thinner, and more fragile. She grabbed at them, to reel it back to her, but her fingers passed through the wispy strands. Like trying to catch dust in a mote of light.
Through the blurring haze, beyond the floating point of green, Hankirk slumped on the ground, falling across her legs. His gaze peered over the collar of his jacket. With a glimmer of recognition, he looked at her soul in wonder. After another moment, his eyes closed.
She pushed his weight off of her, panicking. She needed to reach the flickering, fluttering thing. It belonged with her. Every movement felt as though she were being raked with needles across every inch of her—inside and out. The sweat on her skin glistened silver. That was it, then. If Kirna was right, the alien solution was out of her system.
Forcing herself to her feet, crying out with the agony, she rose and wrapped her hands around the glowing vision hanging in midair.
A sensation like cool water, like the warmth of a hearth, spread through her hands. Relief flooded over her skin, pushing back against the agony threatening to consume her.
The green burst into a million shards and rushed at her, seeking out her bare skin wherever it was exposed. The sensation reminded her of diving into the ocean after Kirna. Fiery cold coursed over every inch of her skin, every pore, every hair standing on end. Of her organs within her body. Of the movement of cartilage and bones expanding with each breath.
She tingled with more sensation than she thought it possible to process, but rather than overwhelmed, she felt such immense relief. The tears she’d shed in fear of losing herself intensified into sobs. Her head was angled back, her chin toward the tunnel ceiling. Across the city, all around her, she saw the glittering green of more Nexuslight, as though she looked through stone. Concentrated spots of green marked people on the street and in the tower above.
None were moving.
Her head slowly cleared; the green vision receded so she could see the ruin of the chamber around her. She wiped her eyes on the underside of her sleeve where there was the least amount of dust and blood.
Scars from Hankirk’s bomb streaked the floor, the marks stretching almost all the way to the walls. The ceiling above was cracked, and clusters of bricks piled below on the floor, along with the dust of cement.
There was still a remnant of glowing light obscuring her vision. It was in the tunnel with them, where Hankirk lay still on the ground. He still had a pulse, but when he woke there would be little left of the man.
Still trembling, she searched his pockets for its source. Her hands closed around the unmistakable bulk and shape of a ring. Silus Cutter’s signet ring. She let Hankirk’s unconscious form slump back to the ground and shoved the ring into one of her pouches.
She checked to make sure Dug’s crystal splinter was still in its pouch, then abandoned Hankirk to go find her crew.
She called out, her voice sharp and painful against her throat. She coughed again and almost missed when Sophie answered from the tunnel outside the chamber, followed with the sound of shifting rubble. The girl’s voice sounded as diminished as Talis felt.
At the noise, Hankirk began to stir. Bits of potshard and metal formed spiny protrusions across his bloodied back through his shredded jacket. Some of the rubble fell loose and clattered to the ground. He scraped along the floor, rising to his knees. Clutched at his stomach, then fell forward again without the other arm to balance his weight.
Beyond the chamber, guttural noises sounded from deeper in the tunnels. The gas cloud still hung thick in the air, sparing only a few clear feet along the floor. It swirled as an updraft inhaled it through the grates and pipes to the tower above. How many devices were there? How many of them had gone off? Talis had not allowed herself a plan which accounted for failure.
Hankirk pushed up to his knees again with a groan. With no desire to watch him become a monster, Talis ran, skipping over rubble and slipping on ceramic fragments to escape the chamber.
In the dim light she saw the healthy green glow from her remaining crew. Kirna had done it. She saved them.
As for the rest of the world. Well, it was in the pot now.
Their act of heroism saved no one. Cost them Dug.
Sophie slapped the side of her torch against an open palm until the light flickered and came on. Through the settling dust, Talis saw Emeranth crumpled on the ground in a heap. The girl was moving, sluggish, and watched Talis’s approach with suspicion.
Time to go after Onaya. Get that wretched woman trussed up nice and tight, just like Emeranth. Deliver the pair to Meran, though she doubted Diadem could be saved by the presence of their restored Empress. The mess was spreading on the wind. Thousands, maybe millions would die—tearing each other and themselves to pieces, and with them, the last vestiges of the Cutter Empire and maybe Peridot.
There was only one thing that could stop it.
Tisker tossed one of the alien rifles to Talis, and she caught it one-handed, throwing the strap over her neck as she kept walking. She didn’t wield it. Didn’t want to think about the consequences. Everyone they might fire at was a soul who could potentially be saved, once they freed Meran. Talis swung the weapon against her back, so she could focus on her footing. Tisker and Sophie fell into step behind her.
Chapter 46
They shared the task of carry
ing Emeranth. She kicked and bucked, arching her back and whipping her head about. Whenever she wrested away from the grip of one, whoever was nearest would catch her by the shoulders before she could trip against her ankle bindings and hurt herself. They kept her gagged, held her as tight as they could, and tried to make as little sound as possible. Every attempt the girl made at escape had Talis tempted to let her go. If the whole city was lost, what good would one princess be to them?
But she had once been innocent, and Talis wouldn’t give up on anyone else.
They emerged in an alley, beyond the cramped perimeter of the palace, between tall buildings whose small windows were dark.
They left the grate off behind them, unwilling to make extra noise for the sake of being tidy.
Emeranth had other plans. The gag loosened out of her mouth, and she released a chilling scream. Between the sound, the gnashing teeth and tethered legs struggling against Tisker’s arms, Scrimshaw’s comparison with the zalika was reinforced in detail.
“Get that gag back on her,” Talis hissed, crouching low as though it would compensate for the sound.
Sophie muttered something Talis couldn’t hear over the noise, circled around Tisker, and slapped the princess across the face.
The girl fell silent, glaring at Sophie in a moment of surprise. Tisker’s face registered shock, and he recovered enough to get the gag back into her mouth and secure.
A rustle sounded from the mouth of the alley.
They froze, shrinking back against the wall. Sophie slipped one of her axes free of its holster, earning a sharp look from Talis when the whisper of wood against leather sounded obscenely loud in the tense stillness. It was answered by the rustling sound, closer. The darkness hid the newcomer’s approach, and Talis decided whomever it was already knew they were there, and she’d rather see them than wait for their touch. She motioned to Sophie, who flicked on the charged torch and swung the beam across the alley in front of them.
Several dozen beady eyes flashed green. Rats, reared back in surprise, but already recovering.
