Sirus
He could feel Catheline’s mingled terror and anger as he made the suggestion that the surviving Greens and Reds should scatter. She had called him to her command tent to oversee the assault on Stockcombe. Given that it was an all-drake affair she would act as conduit whilst Sirus supplied the tactical direction. Linking minds with her was always a disconcerting experience, like sinking into a constantly shifting swamp of muted emotion whilst beneath it all the vast will of the White rumbled and smoked like a fractious volcano.
Sirus couldn’t help a perverse pride in both the conception and execution of his plan, making him ponder the unwelcome notion that he might have absorbed some of Morradin’s characteristics. His opponent at Stockcombe had evidently been a capable commander, the booby traps and the mines in the harbour were an unpleasant and costly surprise, as was the fierce resistance of the ships. But he had learned by now that it was always a sound strategy to subvert the expectations of one’s enemy. In compelling the Reds to mount a ground assault rather than attack from the air, he had done exactly that. Victory would undoubtedly have been his had not the Blacks arrived.
After hours of hopeless resistance, during which Catheline’s mind continued to communicate the death agonies of hundreds of drakes, Sirus had been forced to withdraw from their shared connection. “We can’t win this,” he said simply. “If He wishes to preserve their lives, they should scatter.”
Her red-black eyes bore into him with such intensity he wondered if she had suddenly decided to hate him. But then she reached out to capture his mind once more and he realised her expression was born of concern rather than hatred. For the first time he was able to fully experience her communion with the White. There were no words, no shared images, just an exchange of emotion so rapid it sent a jolt of pain through his mind. Somehow, despite the pain, he was able to discern the essence of this communication:
Failure.
Reproach.
Contrition.
Anger.
Deeper contrition.
Need to punish.
Acceptance . . . and supplication.
For a brief moment he managed to make out a coherent thought as Catheline ensured her message was unambiguous. He is still needed. My failure. My punishment. There was no pause before the White responded: Concurrence.
Sirus let out a groan as Catheline released her mental hold, seeing her offer him a sad smile and a shrug. “This time He would have killed you,” she said.
Abruptly she stiffened, arching like a bow, limbs shuddering as her head snapped back. Her body was so rigid she couldn’t even fall from her chair. Sirus forced himself to watch as she convulsed, blood spouting from her mouth and streaming from her nose. The sudden appearance of more blood beneath her chair indicating she was bleeding from all orifices. It continued for what seemed an age, so long in fact that her finely tailored cavalry uniform became drenched in blood and Sirus felt certain she would soon have no more left to give. The notion raised an important question: If she dies, what then?
But she didn’t die. Finally, when her skin had taken on an alabaster hue and the blood had begun to pool on the carpet, she collapsed. Sirus leapt forward to catch her as she fell, lifting her easily in his remade arms. Catheline’s eyelids fluttered as she shivered in his grasp, her lips forming a smile as she raised a hand to caress his scaled cheek. “My hero,” she whispered before fainting.
* * *
• • •
There were few foot-hills north of the pass known as the Grand Cut, the mountains rearing up out of the grassy plains in sudden, sheer-sided majesty. The pass itself was a broad canyon that narrowed considerably as it proceeded deeper into the range of peaks dominating the region the Varestians called “the Neck.” Reconnaissance flights by Reds the day before had confirmed the smaller passes to the east and west closed by rubble. The Grand Cut, however, remained open.
“An obvious trap,” Morradin growled, squinting at the pass and the clouds lingering over the cliffs that formed its flanks. “Expected better of them.”
“You’re sure?” Catheline asked. She had recovered quickly from the previous night’s punishment, colour having returned to her face and her bearing displaying scant sign of fatigue. Sirus detected a new wariness in her, however. In place of her ruined uniform she wore a simple muslin dress, a thick woollen shawl about her shoulders, which were slightly hunched. He also noted the tightness of her grip on the shawl, the knuckles bone-white.
“We go in there, we’ll pay for it,” Morradin asserted. “In blood.”
Catheline raised an eyebrow at Sirus, letting out an exasperated hiss when he gave a nod of confirmation. “Very well,” she said, turning away. “The scenic route it is . . .”
She trailed off as a loud boom sounded from the Grand Cut. Turning back Sirus saw a large grey cloud rising above the mountain mist, followed a second later by a thick pall of dust issuing from the mouth of the pass.
“What was that?” Catheline demanded.
Morradin’s brows knitted in bemusement as he raised a spy-glass to scan the pass. “Looks as if they’ve blocked it anyway,” he said when the dust had cleared. He continued to peer through the glass then straightened in surprise. “Or at least tried to. Bloody thing’s still open.”
Sirus extended his own glass and trained it on the Grand Cut. Morradin was right, there was a good deal of rubble littering the floor of the pass but it was far from blocked.
“Miscalculated their charge, perhaps?” Morradin said as he and Sirus exchanged glances. “Or blew themselves up trying to rig it.”
“It could still be a trap,” Sirus said. “Bait to lure us in.”
“The Reds will find out soon enough,” Catheline said. A trio of Reds flew overhead a few seconds later, wings sweeping in broad arcs as they climbed into the mist. Catheline shared the view through the eyes of the lead Red as it flew over the pass. As I thought, Morradin commented in satisfaction at the sight of numerous armed figures dotting the rocky terrain atop the cliffs. Sirus estimated their number at three hundred at most. Hardly the kind of force he would have expected if their enemy intended to inflict serious harm.
Unless they want the pass to do it for them, Morradin mused, reading his thoughts. Wait until we march in then bring the mountains down on top of us. A pulse of grim amusement. Looks like they pissed on their own breakfast with this one.
It could still . . . Sirus began but his thought was swallowed by a sudden upsurge of excitement from Catheline.
She’s here!
The Red’s vision of the pass sprang into more vivid life, focusing on a particular figure standing at the cliff-edge. Thanks to the power of drake sight they were soon confronted with a close-up view of the figure’s features. Lizanne Lethridge stared back at them through the Red’s eyes, a smile of grim mockery on her lips. She moved slightly and the image refocused, drawing back to reveal the sight of her raising a carbine to her shoulder. The muzzle flared in a bright orange plume and the vision went black. The absence of the usual confusion and pain indicated the Red had died instantly.
“Bitch,” Catheline breathed in a tone of hungry malice. Her gaze flashed at Sirus and Morradin, the red pupils seeming to glow like coals. “Get in there! Send all of them!”
Her will was implacable and shot through with the White’s irresistible blood-lust. Every Red leapt into the sky as the Spoiled battalions started forward. The Greens charged in two huge packs on the flanks, every mind, Spoiled and drake, filled with a single purpose: KILL HER!
CHAPTER 39
Lizanne
The Smoker jerked against her shoulder as she unleashed the Redball. It impacted at the base of the Red’s neck, the explosion instantly severing it from the body. The rest of the fighters, all armed with Smokers, opened fire on the other Reds. The hail of explosive bullets felled one immediately, but it took several more shots before they br
ought down the other, the bullets chasing it across the sky until one of the Varestians managed a hit on its chest.
Lizanne watched the stricken creature spiral down into the misty depths of the Grand Cut then turned her gaze to the north. She found that the fog, mingled with the drifting smoke from their intentionally abortive attempt to block the pass, made it difficult to gauge the reaction of the White’s army. She injected a small amount of product to enhance her vision and was soon rewarded with the sight of a multitude of Green drakes streaming towards the Cut. Following close behind were the Spoiled, their previously neat ranks forgotten now as they charged across the plain in a disorderly mob thousands strong. Shifting her gaze upwards, she saw the fast-approaching shapes of more Reds than could easily be counted.
In addition to the Blood-blessed contingent there were about two hundred Varestian fighters, mostly of a piratical nature judging by their clothing and abundance of knives. They were all volunteers who had been dropped on the lower south-facing slopes by aerostat the day before.
“They’re coming,” she told them. “Remember your orders, fire and retreat. We need to draw them in.”
The Varestians immediately ran off to occupy their positions deeper in the pass, the group on the other side of the dividing chasm following suit, leaving the Blood-blessed to face the first rush of Reds. Lizanne injected a short burst of Blue and slipped into the trance where Morva was waiting on the deck of the antique sailing-ship that formed her mindscape.
“It worked,” Lizanne told her. “Tell Tekela to commence her run.”
She ended the trance without waiting for a reply and moved back from the cliff-edge. “Product!” Lizanne ordered the other Blood-blessed, depressing the first three buttons on her Spider. “Full doses! No need to skimp here. Every one we kill today is one we don’t have to kill tomorrow.”
She moved to crouch behind a near by boulder, the other Blood-blessed also finding cover in the surrounding rocks. Lizanne rested the Smoker’s forestock on the top of the boulder, pointing it at the sky, and slotted another Redball into the glass receptacle atop the chamber. She waited, veins thrumming with product and eyes fixed on the Smoker’s sights. She heard the Reds before she saw them, their shrill cries echoing up the mountain side in a hungry chorus. She lit the Redball the instant a dark silhouette slipped into her sights, blasting it apart as a cacophony of carbine fire erupted all around.
Lizanne stood up, seeing a dozen Reds falling out of the sky as the explosive rounds took their toll. Seeing a Red twisting amidst the barrage she tracked it with the Smoker, sights aimed just in front of its nose to compensate for the distance, and fired three rounds in quick succession, the carbine’s lever blurring as she worked it. Mortally wounded by the trio of large holes punched into its hide, the Red let out a stream of impotent flame before slamming into the cliff-face below.
A warning shout from one of her fellow Blood-blessed had Lizanne leaping away, Green-enhanced limbs carrying her wide of the stream of fire cast at her by a diving Red. It reared back, wings fanning the air and neck coiling for another try. A salvo of rounds from the surrounding Blood-blessed tore one of its wings away and left a gaping hole in its chest, leaving it a bloody tangle clinging feebly to the cliff-edge before sliding into the Grand Cut.
Casting a glance skyward, Lizanne saw that the Reds had been forced higher by the fire of the Smokers and were now circling in a huge spiral. Seeing them begin to cluster together in groups of five or more, Lizanne knew that the defenders were about to be subjected to a massed onslaught from above. No amount of explosive bullets could hope to stem such a weight of drake flesh.
“Pull back!” she shouted, moving across the rocky ground in an unnaturally fast, leaping sprint.
Seeing their prey attempting an escape, the Reds let out a collective scream of fury and gave chase. Hearing the beat of large wings at her back, Lizanne leapt and pivoted in midair, aiming the Smoker one-handed at the head of the pursuing Red. Thanks to the reflex-enhancing effects of Green she was able to put a bullet in its eye before whirling about for a landing.
She didn’t pause as her boots met rock, propelling herself on and refreshing her diminishing Green with the Spider. A scream sounded behind her, human rather than drake, brief and full of agony before it choked off. Lizanne didn’t turn to see the inevitable grisly spectacle. She had entertained a faint hope of completing this mission without casualties, but knew it to be an indulgent self-delusion designed to assuage the guilt of commanding others in battle.
Upon reaching a point halfway along the pass she leapt atop a tall boulder and came to a halt, turning to face the Reds. The other Blood-blessed all rushed to pre-chosen spots and did the same, all Smokers raised and aimed as the Reds closed. Here the pass constricted to its narrowest point and was overlooked by ledges on the mountains rising on both sides, ledges where their pirate allies now waited, Smokers tracking the Reds streaming into their sights.
Over two hundred carbines began firing at once, blasting at least thirty Reds out of the sky. Lizanne aimed at the densest concentration of drakes and emptied her Smoker, hand once again blurring on the lever and cartridges spinning away in a brass cascade. The Blood-blessed had all been trained in the same technique, meaning the Reds found themselves charging into an impassible wall of bullets. The mass of drakes reared back from the fusillade, resembling a huge swarm of hornets retreating from a flaming torch.
“Reload!” Lizanne ordered, jumping down from the boulder and slotting fresh bullets into her Smoker from the bandolier about her chest. Her gaze was fixed on the southern end of the pass, the sun now risen high enough to burn off much of the mist. For a second she thought Morva had failed to pass on the order but then saw the curved wedge of the Typhoon’s envelope cresting the mountain side. She rose swiftly with the Tempest close alongside, the two aerostats drifting forward as they ascended. They stalled their ascent about eight hundred feet above, the Tempest letting loose with her Thumpers whilst the Typhoon unleashed a hail of bullets from her Growlers.
Assailed from above and below, the swarm of Reds split apart, one group banking away to the east whilst the other furiously beat their wings to gain more height, desperate to get at the aircraft. Lizanne concentrated on the other group, watching it split apart twice more, each subdivision banking away. Trying to disperse our fire, she realised. Come at us from all sides at once. They had only a few moments’ respite before the storm descended.
“It’s time!” she called out, rising to her feet and pointing at the southern end of the pass. “Make for the pick-up point!”
Most needed no encouragement, the Blood-blessed immediately refreshing their Green to sprint and leap away with the pirates following as fast as they could. But a few stayed, mostly Varestians but also a couple of Blood-blessed. “Miss Blood?” one of them asked, a middle-aged man who cast repeated nervous glances at the sky.
Lizanne resisted the urge to snap, “Don’t call me that!” and forced a smile instead. “Rear guard,” she told him, gesturing towards the south. “I’ll be along. Now go!”
She watched them flee then turned back to gauge the progress of the White’s army. The Grand Cut was thick with Greens and Spoiled all the way to the promontory where she stood, the promontory which their explosives had deliberately failed to send tumbling into the pass. However, the as yet unexploded second batch contained more than enough fire-power to bring it down. Lizanne quickly spotted the detonator positioned in a shallow crevice near by and started towards it, then stopped at a challenging squawk from above. Seeing a Red separate from the main pack to dive towards her, she swiftly slotted a Redball into the Smoker and blew it out of the sky at a distance of fifty yards.
Turning back to the detonator she rushed towards it and crouched in the shadowed confines of the crevice. Reaching into the pocket of her overalls she extracted the item so carefully crafted by Madame Hakugen’s theatrically experienced employ
ee. Fashioned mostly from congealed glue and rubber Lizanne, with her extensive experience of disguises, had initially been sceptical of its efficacy. But, upon trying it out she had been reassured by Tekela’s assertion that she looked “utterly ghastly.” Pressing it to her face, she took a bottle of pig’s blood from her other pocket and emptied it over her head. It was thick with coagulants and possessed of a truly appalling smell, but she needed it to complete the disguise.
A fresh chorus of drake screams told her she was out of time and she reached for the detonator, one hand on the lever whilst the other pressed the second button on the Spider to flood her veins with all the remaining Green. She pushed the detonator’s lever then clamped her hands over her ears, shutting her eyes tight. A bare second later the explosives went off, Lizanne finding herself lifted clear of the mountain side by the blast. She spread her limbs to stabilise herself as she tumbled, grit-filled air whipping past as she plummeted into the pass.
* * *
• • •
She didn’t need to feign unconsciousness. Her attempt to slide down the flank of the dislodged promontory to the floor of the pass went well at first, but the huge slab of rock contrived to break apart upon connecting with the ground, leaving her tumbling in a cloud of dust. Something hard slammed into her back, possessed of enough force to cause serious injury if not for the copious Green in her system. Lizanne attempted to angle her feet towards the ground, intending to roll with the impact and hopefully prevent any fractures, but another something cracked against the side of her head and she found herself falling into a vast pool of utter blackness.
She came to atop a pile of corpses, blinking into the dull-eyed stare of a dead Green only inches from her face. It lay across an equally dead Spoiled, a woman about Lizanne’s own age with her neck twisted at an impossible angle. Looking around through bleary eyes Lizanne saw that the bodies were all stacked against the newly created wall of rock spanning the width of the Grand Cut. Those not buried by the avalanche had evidently piled up in front of it, crushing themselves to death in the process.