Chapter 16
Chain stayed awake all night, her sleeping daughter unaware she and their room were monitored so closely. She listened carefully for tell-tale scratching, the herald of this new Disciple, but was faced only with the soft rise and fall of her daughter's breath.
She couldn’t watch her on the night of the Merchant's shipment. And she would inspect that shipment, Station politics be damned: she would answer the Bureau, the Council, even the Guardian if called forward, and would do so knowing that she was backed by Sol.
That day passed quickly. Carmen questioned why she couldn't go to school, and wasn't satisfied with Chain's half-truths. Her troubled mind forgot the change in routine whenever a new game started, or Chain began to read a book to her, but it would eventually resurface. It was a pleasant way to spend her day, albeit somewhat painful with the lies she had to tell.
And then it was evening. Chain didn't know what time she should leave: theoretically, the heavily-laden wagon of gems, minerals, and reports would take a good while to get to Buckle, but Chain didn't know whether the Heretics would be brazen enough to lighten the load and weigh it down again with Disciple technology. She decided to leave shortly after Sol fell and set a trap. But, for the moment, she was content to stand by Carmen's room as she slept.
Who was she protecting Carmen from, though? Her gut told her it was Par, that he skimmed for the Disciples and not himself. He must have seen Grain's private documents, whether by bribing the Cleric or using his Disciple. Either way, he was the most likely candidate to sell his soul to the Disciples in return for... well, Lun only knows what he got.
Chain touched the Baptism resting on her hip, an acid-filled projectile sent to every Contegon shortly after their invention: all Par would earn for his treachery is experiencing its fury.
Bracket stepped out of her bedroom, a patched gown gripping her form loosely. She hadn't taken well to being locked up, to being constantly on edge: displeasure and discomfort weighed on her gaunt face and drooping eyelids. Nevertheless, she yawned and said, “I'm ready to take over.”
“Thank you,” Chain whispered.
“What do I do if... the worst happens?”
“You take Carmen and the jar and you run,” Chain said quietly. “Head into the forest, avoid the roads, and run to my parents in Aureu. The only person you can trust on the way is Carmen.”
“And when we're there?”
“Find Contegon Tone White and tell her all I told you.”
Bracket nodded. Her friend hadn't believed a Disciple plot could cross the Front and the Gravit Mountains at first, but the jar Chain carefully kept from Carmen had convinced her. She knew enough to warn the Contegons, to ignite them scouring Buckle of its Heretics.
“I should go,” Chain said.
Bracket nodded and took a rough cudgel from her room, one formed from the leg of a table she'd been making in her spare time. She rested the club beside Carmen's room and stood straight, looked less tired.
“Thank you again, Bracket.”
“You don't need to–”
“Yes, I do,” Chain said. “In case I never get to again, thank you.”
“Oh, shut up, you're going to make me cry at this rate...”
Chain hugged her, long enough to feel better, but not so much it inflamed her fears. Then she broke away and left the house, silent as a bad reputation.
Lun's strange silver light made every building a jaunty, twisted mess and soaked the shadows in dark blood. Under this cruel light, she ran, footsteps echoing, seemingly amplified by the dead silence: with no evening economy, everyone rested. None saw her heading purposefully to the main road.
Buckle was built around its main road, which moved north to the Family Mine or south to civilization. The road bifurcated the town and was wide to allow large carriages to pass one another. It was widest as the centre of the town, where it passed through a large, open square.
When Chain reached the town square, saw its single fountain whose gush had been quieted for the night, she checked for signs of life, the square being a possible place to swap the gems the Mine thought it sent, but that theory proved false with no one or nothing around.
Nowhere else in Buckle was suitable for loading and unloading the Mine's wide carriages, so any swap must happen outside the town. If it happened at all: it was still possible the Heresy occurred at the Mine, that Par and his Merchants brazenly worked where it was easiest for them. If that were the case, she'd still prefer to meet her foes on the open fields beyond Buckle, rather than the cramped, civilian-rich streets.
In the grey hatred of Lun, Chain left Buckle.
After a mile, she saw two people standing with a few boxes further along the road. They held torches, amber glows of sanity in the silver madness that illuminated their cargo. The spot they'd chosen was just beyond a dip in the lands, so no one could see them from Buckle. It also meant that Chain might be visible to them, a dark figure picked out on the horizon. She flattened herself to the ground, panicked that she'd been caught, but neither reacted: perhaps they weren't looking? She didn't know and didn't care, so long as she'd not been seen.
There was no cover between them, no way to approach without being seen. She couldn't remain a flat form by the road with the shipment on its way. If they hadn't seen her yet, perhaps they weren't properly checking for saboteurs. If so, she might get close enough to disable them before they could warn the shipment somehow, through a firework or some Disciple heresy.
Rising, she proceeded at a slight crouch. As she went, Sol granted her a boon: thick clouds rolled over Lun, granting her a cover of darkness. She whispered a quick, thankful prayer, as she scurried.
The cloud allowed her to get within a hundred yards of the guards. One was a Merchant, his long golden coat done up to fight the night's chill. The other was behind the boxes so she couldn't see them. They didn't talk. The Merchant's eyes were closed as he rested his head against the boxes.
This relaxation let Chain get to within fifty feet away. Looking around blearily, he passed over Chain twice before he realised what he saw. “Oh shit, Contegon!” he shouted.
Her twin axes flashed into her hands as she charged him. The Merchant screeched and pulled a black object from his robes, a rough triangle with a hole to put his index finger through. He levelled the weapon and fired, but Chain was already changing direction, so he missed.
The other guard stepped out from behind the boxes. It was Cleric Grain. She was much calmer than the Merchant, more practised with the triangular weapon: her shot struck Chain's form, though Sol smiled on her again as the projectile fired through Chain's robes but missed her flesh.
The Heretics shot their Disciple weapons again. Grain struck true this time, clipping Chain's side. The wound felt superficial, so the Contegon ignored it, roaring as she closed into melee range.
The Merchant turned to flee, and thus sealed his doom: the worst thing to do was show your back to a charging Contegon. Chain leapt forward and brought both axes down onto the bastard's shoulders, the edges digging through his flesh, forcing him to his knees. He burbled something through his blood.
Chain grabbed the weapon he dropped and rolled away immediately, put the boxes between her and Grain. The Cleric had expected her to finish the Merchant, was aiming there, so her shot missed Chain and struck her partner in the leg. He howled wetly, bleeding profusely now.
There were four boxes between her and Grain, arranged in a square. Chain listened, tried to work out what the Cleric was doing, but heard nothing: Grain wasn't moving, wasn't trying to finish her. But then, Grain didn't need to kill her, did she? She only had to keep Chain pinned down until the shipment arrived.
She considered using her Baptism, dousing the Cleric in its acids, but decided to keep that for the incoming shipment. She needed to defeat Grain with her weapons and her guile.
Ideas and tactics thundered through her panic. On a whim, Chain threw the Disciple gun to her right and charged to the left, hoping the
sound would distract the Cleric. The gun rustled through the grass. Grain shot it, her bullet pinging away loudly.
Chain growled as she span to build power. Grain's eyes widened as Chain sank an axe into her arm.
The Cleric shrieked. Her blood sprayed into the night. Chain pulled her axe from the girl's arm and smacked the pommel of her other axe into her traitorous nose. There was a satisfying crunch. Grain shrieked again and fell back, dropping the gun.
Chain kicked the weapon away, and stood over the Cleric. Adrenaline rushed through her. A kill was so tempting, more blood from this Heretic who killed Tissue, but Geos needed the Heretics alive to uncover what they knew. Instead, she sated herself by stamping on Grain's hand so hard her fingers broke, leaving her unable to use either arm for some time.
“Your Hereticum will be fun,” Chain whispered. “Now, let's see what you were guarding.”
Chain pulled at the lid of the closest box, but a sharp pain in her side stopped her. The bullet wound from earlier had turned her Contegon robes red, deeper than she'd thought at the time. As her adrenaline cleared, the pain sharpened, and she felt woozy.
Leaving the boxes alone, Chain strapped her wound up with bandaging she always kept to hand.
The Merchant whimpered shortly after she was done. Pathetically, he was crawling toward her, tears and blood flowing down his body. She took no joy in his pain, treating his wounds so he’d see his Hereticum. Chain wiped her axes on Cleric Grain's robes, then used the traitor's clothes to cut bandages for the two Heretics. She used what remained to make restraints and gags. Grain tried to bite when Chain forced the strip between her teeth, but a knee to her temple settled that defiance.
When she was done, she dragged the Heretics to the boxes and propped them up to look normal from a distance. Both should survive their wounds, so both would enjoy the hot justice of a Hereticum. Her own wound was bleeding afresh, but it had been reduced to a trickle, and the wooziness had passed for now.
She was about to check what they had been guarding when horseshoes pounded in the distance: the shipment was on its way. Chain picked her axes up and settled behind the boxes, using them as cover to surprise whoever was coming for her.
There, she breathed calmly and slowly. There, she waited.