“You know my feelings,” Alain said, letting his unhappiness sound clearly in his voice.
“And you know everything has been going fine. I’m pregnant, not an invalid. I won’t sit home safe while other people risk their lives!”
He sat next to her, resigned to trying to protect her once they reached the building under which the cipher doors lay. Off to the south, he could hear the distant rattle of Mechanic weapons and the boom of explosions. Many of the people of Pacta Servanda that they passed were standing still, staring in the direction of the sounds of battle.
A half-dozen alert guards stood on the street outside the building. They came to attention as Mari and Alain got out of the carriage. “There may be trouble coming this way,” Mari warned them. “Stay very alert.”
“Why is there no Mage here as part of the guard?” Alain asked the one in charge.
“The one assigned fell severely sick soon after coming on watch and had to be taken to the hospital,” the guard commander replied. “We’re waiting for a replacement to show up.”
“Sick?” Alain looked at Mari. “Or poisoned in food or drink.”
“Be ready for anything!” Mari ordered. “Let’s get down there and check inside.”
The trip down the stairs to the basement took longer than usual, Mari having to go slowly. “It’ll be nice to be able to see my feet again, too,” she said when they finally reached the floor and went through a reinforced door to the excavation.
Queen Sien’s word had been good, but then it always was. Alain could see another wall of masonry facing him, the door in it also reinforced. Beyond that, he knew, other walls stood, preventing any Mage or Mechanic from reaching the cipher area without approval.
“Everything is fine here?” Mari asked the four guards posted at this final checkpoint.
“Yes, Lady. Nothing is happening here.”
Multiple explosions sounded outside.
After a single, shocked moment, the guard jumped to the door and hauled it closed, shoving the bolts in place to hold it shut.
He and the other three guards held their rifles at ready, facing the door.
“Alain,” Mari said, “check the side walls to make sure they haven’t tunneled close to here already and are planning to burst in that way.”
He was on one side of the room, testing the wall there, Mari on the other side, when an explosion tore through the doorway, a storm of fragments flaying the guards in its path.
“Dragon killer! How many of those blasted things has Alli made?” Mari struggled back to her feet, her pistol out, and with grim resolve began firing rapidly at the doorway. Alain saw the first mercenary coming through the shattered door fall, then a second, then a older man in a Mechanics jacket, another Mercenary…
As Mari had been firing, Alain had been preparing a heat spell, putting into it all of the power he could to increase its strength and use up the power here so the attackers could not make use of it. When Mari paused firing to reload, Alain sent the heat to the doorway.
Screams erupted as those on the other side of the door felt the air nearby suddenly become horrifyingly hot. The doorway burst into flames.
Shaking from the expenditure of his strength in the spell, Alain drew his Mage knife. The fire and smoke in the doorway billowed out as someone came through who couldn’t be seen.
Mari, her weapon ready again, fired three times into the center of the doorway. An old Mage appeared, probably an elder of the former Mage Guild, falling to the floor unheeding of the flames that had sprung to life on his robes.
“You set fire to the building we’re in, Alain,” Mari said, keeping her weapon aimed at the doorway. “Again. Didn’t we agree that was a bad idea?”
“I do not recall reaching agreement on that,” Alain said. “I had thought it was important to react to events as they occurred.”
One shot, then another, came flying through the door, aimed blindly, smashing into the outer wall protecting the cipher locks.
Alain felt a spell draining the last remaining power around here. “Another Mage,” he warned Mari.
She was ready when the smoke in the doorway swirled again, firing another three shots in quick succession. A second elderly Mage appeared, staggering backwards out of sight before they heard the thud of him falling to the floor.
But Alain felt another Mage approaching, something with her coming down the stairs with heavy, ponderous footfalls. “Mari, they have a troll.”
“A troll.”
She lowered herself far enough to pick up the rifle of one of the fallen guards. “How do we stop a troll, Alain?”
“I do not know. There is no power for spells left here.”
“It’s going to have to pause coming through that door as it breaks its way in, because it’ll be too big to get through,” Mari said. “Alain, when I toss down this rifle, give me another from the floor. I can’t bend down too well these days. Try not to push the trigger.”
“The trigger is… ”
“Just don’t push anything.”
One of the guards staggered to his feet, rifle in hand, blood dripping down one arm and the side of his face. “What should I do, Lady?”
“Aim for the troll’s eyes. He’ll be close. He’ll have to pause in the doorway.”
“Troll?”
“We are beside you,” Alain said, his knife in his hand, and the guard steadied.
“I’ll take the left eye,” Mari told the guard. “You aim at the right.”
“What-what if we don’t hit the troll’s eyes? What if it gets in?”
“Then we’re in trouble,” she said. “Try to avoid getting hit by the troll and try to shoot anyone following it into this room.”
Alain saw a dark bulk appear on the other side of the door. Taller and wider than a human, immensely strong, but with barely enough intellect to destroy things and follow the orders of the Mage who created it, the troll halted just outside the door as it was confronted with an opening too small to get through..
The Mage controlling the troll shouted orders and the troll shambled forward, hands the size of shovels reaching out to grab at the battered, burning doorframe. Oblivious to the pain from the blazing wood, the troll pried and tore at the frame and the wall around it, widening the opening.
“Steady,” Mari said to the guard. She looked at Alain as the light of the electric lights flickered. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he said, raising his knife to guard position.
A large chunk of the top of the doorway fell inward, exposing the face of the troll beyond. Rough, primitive, as if a child had tried to form that face from clay. No emotion except nearly mindless ferocity.
Mari’s rifle crashed, followed by that of the guard. Alain saw bullets strike around the eyes of the troll, the Mage creature batting at them like a person waving off flies. This close, some of the bullets managed to penetrate the troll’s skin, but even at this range they couldn’t pierce its skull. None inflicted enough damage to slow the monster. The noise of the Mechanic weapons filled the room. Alain heard something snap past one of his ears as a bullet bouncing off the tough skin of the troll came a little too close to be comfortable.
The troll flinched, roaring loudly enough to drown for a moment the sound of the rifles. Alain saw dark ichor dripping down the troll’s face from one of its eyes, where a bullet had gone home.
“Get the other eye!” Mari yelled to the guard.
Alain saw someone trying to slip past the troll to get into the room, a hand and arm coming around the edge of the door. He stepped forward, swinging his long knife, and the person fell back.
Another tried the same trick on the other side of the troll, but this time the troll, irritated and in pain, noticed and slammed a mighty fist down to crush the skull of the interloper.
The troll punched at the remaining portions of the doorway, knocking a big chunk of wall into the room to rebound off the wall behind Alain and shatter.
The guard, still on his
feet, quailed, but then looked at Mari standing and firing without flinching. The guard slammed home another magazine and fired again.
“Alain!” Mari called. “Rifle!”
He bent to pick up one of the Mechanic weapons, trying to grab a part of it that seemed harmless, and passed it to Mari as she dropped the one she’d been firing.
The troll began forcing its way through the enlarged opening, but one massive shoulder caught. Instead of backing out and clearing the way, the troll stubbornly kept slamming the shoulder against the projection of the wall that was holding it. The projection gradually gave way, the troll filling the opening with its bulk.
More explosions sounded outside, followed by an eruption of rifle fire.
The troll shoved itself halfway into the room.
“Mari!” Alain yelled.
But she was moving, angry at being unable to get a good shot, moving to where those massive troll hands could reach her if the creature noticed her. Raising her rifle, her jaw set, and firing. The troll bellowing again in pain and anger, Mari stepping back before a blindly flailing troll paw could strike her.
“I got its other eye. We just have to stay out of its way now,” Mari called.
Alain looked around the room they were in, which when the troll made its way inside would be nearly filled with bodies. “Is that all we must do?” he called, letting his anger at her recklessness show.
The rifle fire outside rose to a sustained roar, growing closer.
The troll paused in the door, as if getting new orders.
Alain felt the Mage who had been controlling the creature cease, her presence vanishing as she died under the guns of the soldiers of Tiae. “The Mage who created the troll is dead.”
“Nobody’s controlling it now?” Mari yelled back. “Blazes!”
“It could be a problem,” Alain agreed.
The troll stood, wedged in the opening, making inarticulate noises that somehow evoked confusion and pain. Alain could see blood dripping from the troll where the close-in rifle fire had penetrated the Mage creature’s thick skin.
A fusillade of rifle shots sounded on the other side of the wall. The troll jerked under the impacts, roaring again, shoving to get itself out of the doorway and back into the outer room.
“Stop shooting,” Mari told the guard with them.
Alain coughed, the fumes from the Mechanic weapons thick in the air, as the blinded troll stumbled out of the doorway and staggered toward where it thought its attackers were in the outer room.
Without the troll blocking the opening, the sound of the rifles firing nearby was once again deafening. The troll shambled about the outer room, the soldiers there dodging and evading as it swung futile blows through the air. Stumbling into the far side of the basement, the troll began hammering at it. It stood there, hitting the basement wall again and again until the stone crumbled and the rock and soil beyond shattered or compressed under the blows.
The soldiers kept shooting, the blood flowing from the troll, until suddenly its long arms dropped, the mighty hands hanging close to the floor. The troll stood like that for a long moment as the rifle fire paused.
It fell to the side with a thud that made the entire structure shiver.
Soldiers rushed in to help the injured guards.
“Mari… ” Alain said, grateful beyond words that they had once more escaped dying, and that they had stopped this attack before it reached the buried wall and perhaps triggered the terrible weapon that Kira’s foresight and his own had warned of.
He looked back at Mari and saw her grimacing, leaning against the wall behind her to stay on her feet. “You are hurt?”
“No,” Mari said, getting the word out from between clenched teeth. “It’s a little early, but this kid has decided that now is the time to come into the world.”
“The baby comes?” Alain turned to the soldiers. “A stretcher and a healer wagon for Lady Mari. Quickly! Doc-tor Sino must be told!”
Chapter Fifteen
Cape Astra’s original train station had been large enough to suit the purposes of the Mechanics Guild, which limited tracks and trains to maximize its own profits and prevent too many common folk from getting a chance to learn anything about the Guild’s technology.
The rail networks had expanded everywhere since the fall of the Great Guilds, and so had this station. A new, soaring roof held electric lights that shone down on the busy concourse and the multiple tracks and platforms that ran through the station.
Kira had walked in, ignoring the eyes that had followed her across the station. There were least two Mechanics, one of them fairly old, with the bitter expression of those who regarded the fall of the Great Guilds as a tragedy. The other was a lot younger, but cocky and arrogant.
“Farland,” she said loudly enough to be heard. “Two tickets.”
“You want the express or the local? The local doesn’t leave until morning.”
“The local.” Paying for the tickets, she turned to see Jason watching her with dejected eyes.
“Kira, please tell me what we’re doing.”
She let him urge her to one side of the great hall. “It’s simple, Jason. Maxim is dead. The ship has been destroyed. But the Mages and Mechanics and hired mercenaries brought here aboard that ship are still in the city.”
Jason nodded, watching her closely. “Right. We talked about that.”
“If they were coming with Maxim, some of them might have those codes you said were need to open those three locks.”
“The triple simul-cipher, yeah.”
“If they scatter, it’ll be very hard to run them down. The threat to Pacta, to this whole world, will remain for who knows how long. Or they might hold together and make it to Pacta and attack my parents. There is only one thing that could motivate them to remain together right now and come into the open. Someone they fear and hate.”
“Kira,” Jason said, “this is sounding like another we-need-to-be-bait idea.”
“It is,” Kira said. “They won’t have heard that Maxim is dead. I’m sure they have orders already to kill me. And if they have those codes, they’ll still want you to show them how to use the weapons, because they think you know that. If they know where we are—”
“They’ll kill you and kidnap me.”
“They’ll try. Jason, we have to stop them! To stop them, we have to get them out of hiding! What else do you want me to do?”
His gaze caught her eyes and held them. “Please ask for help. We can’t do this alone.”
There were Mages in the area. Coming this way. After a moment of worry she felt a surge of confidence. “Who else could I trust? And why couldn’t we handle them on our own? We did all right on that road in the mountains of Altis. And when we got rid of Maxim. It’ll be simple. We get on the train, they attack, we stop them.”
Jason hesitated, looking around them, plainly seeking another argument. When he found it, he spoke only a single word. “Bystanders.”
“What?”
“Innocent bystanders, Kira. On that train with us. Look at them. All over this station, waiting to get on the same train we’ll be riding. Old men and women. Mothers. Fathers. Children. Babies. What’s going to happen to them when the train is attacked by people wanting to kill you and kidnap me?”
His words tore through her confidence like a steel rod through paper. “Children. Babies. Stars above. But… ”
“How are you going to prevent them from being hurt or killed?” Jason pressed. “I know you’re still in there, Kira. For some bizarre reason you think you and I can survive anything. But what about others? I know you’d never put babies in the line of fire.”
“No.” The word warred with her desire to see this through herself, her almost insane level of confidence.
Almost insane. Why had that term come to her?
She took a deep breath. “All right. I’m going to ask for help.”
Jason sagged with relief, looking around. “There’re a couple of police.
”
“Police can’t handle this. We need Western Alliance army. You know what their uniforms look like, right? Black and green. Mostly green, and darker than the green of Tiae.”
“There are two,” Jason said, pointing.
She looked. “Officers. The older one looks pretty senior. Let’s go.”
This time she tried to lose herself in the crowd so no one watching would see her meeting with the Alliance officers. As she wended her way through the crowded station in the wake of the officers, Kira felt an urge to abandon this, to go back to planning to handle the attack on her own along with Jason.
They passed a family, the parents ushering toddlers toward a bench where they could sit down. Kids. Parents. No. She had to make sure no bystanders were hurt.
“They’re heading for the bathrooms,” Jason said. “I can—”
“They won’t listen to you. I need to talk to them.”
“Kira, they’re going in the bathroom.”
“I’m not a child, Jason! I know what men look like! Not that I want to know what these men look like, but I have to risk it.”
Kira headed into the short hallway leading to the rest facilities, the door for women to the right, that for the men to the left. “Jason, stand here and make sure no one comes in.” Kira shoved open the door to the left and walked in, hoping that she wouldn’t see anything she didn’t want to.
The two men in Western Alliance uniform were washing their hands. They turned and stared at her entrance. “Wrong door, girl,” one said, smiling.
“Right door,” Kira said. “I need to talk to you.”
“Listen, if you’re—”
“My name is Lady Mechanic Kira of Dematr. The daughter of the daughter.”
The two officers hesitated, looking at each other. The older one, whom she could now see wore the rank markers of a Western Alliance general, stepped closer to Kira, staring at her. “You look like her. I served in the daughter’s army twenty years ago, and I’ll never forget her face.”