City of Iron and Dust

by J. P. Oakes

  “Come on,” Knull says. “I know where Skart is.”

  Edwyll

  Edwyll has always thought that dying would be peaceful. He has always imagined himself lying on a bed covered with white linen sheets. He has always thought that his family would be there, that Knull would be standing beside him, head bent in contrition, reconciled.

  He curls up tighter on the filth-crusted carpet and tries not to scream.

  Someone is moving about the room. It’s his parents’ living room. He half remembers being dragged here. The kobold’s face bent over his. A growled promise: “This magic will need blood before the end.”

  He opens his eyes, just for a moment. Just to try and grab hold of where he is. He’s at the foot of the couch. His parents are still on it, unmoving. He can’t tell if they’re unconscious or dead. He’s not in much of a state to work it out right now.

  And the kobold. The kobold is here too. He must have pushed the couch to the edge of the room. He’s pushed all the furniture, all the boxes, all the trash to the edge of the room. He’s pacing in a circle. He’s grunting to himself, bending down, doing something to the floor.

  That’s enough. No. No… that’s too much. Edwyll closes his eyes tight. He can’t hold in the scream.

  “Ah.” The kobold speaks. “You’re still with me.”

  Edwyll doesn’t respond. He can’t. His guts are on fire and the rest of his body is cold.

  “I thought perhaps you would slip away.” Skart speaks softly, almost conversationally. “So many are weak now. This new generation. They forget that once we were warriors. They forget that sacrifice was nothing to us.

  “Maybe that was why we fell,” the kobold continues. “Maybe it wasn’t Mab’s Kiss coming down and blotting our cities from the world in mushroom clouds. Maybe it was just that we forgot how to sacrifice ourselves for a greater good. We forgot what it took to become who we were.”

  He pauses in his work, stands up and looks at Edwyll. “I’m sorry that you have to die,” he says. “But please be reassured that I am saving everyone else.”

  Sil

  “Revenge?” Jag looks at Sil, baffled. “But we need to—”

  Sil doesn’t bother listening to her. She turns and puts her foot through the door.

  The two guards outside turn, startled. One reaches for his weapon a fraction before the other. He, she decides, will be the first to die.

  Someone has taken her sword, and so she stabs her fingers into the guard’s throat. She pivots. The other guard has freed his pistol. She chops his wrist with the blade of her hand. The gun clatters on the floor while the first guard hawks and gasps. She delivers an uppercut to the second with the heel of her palm. He sits down hard. She kicks him in the temple. He decides to lie down for a while.

  She turns. The first guard is still gasping for air. She relieves him of his firearm and shoots him in the head. Then, she shoots his friend on the floor. Two to the temple just to be sure.

  That’s a good start.

  Footsteps are coming now. That’s to be expected from the noise she’s been making. She stoops, takes the second guard’s gun and stuffs it in her waistband. Jag is staring at her from inside the room. She turns to face down the corridor, kneels, steadies her arms against one knee, sights down the barrel.

  She guns down the first guard, then the second. She discards the first gun, pulls the second from her waistband and takes out the third guard as he comes round the corner as well. Three little soldiers all lined up on the floor.

  The fourth guard is wiser than his friends. He pauses at the corner, sends covering fire bouncing off the walls. That suits Sil just fine.

  “What are you doing?” Jag manages.

  She looks at Jag, just for a moment. “Exactly what I’ve always wanted to do.” But that’s all the breath worth wasting on her half-sister now, she thinks.

  She takes off away from her and the nervous guard, running at a flat-out sprint as bullets hum in the air around her. She takes the second door she comes to. It’s a narrow, functional corridor. It’s lined with soldiers. They’re pulling on jackets and boots, and strapping empty gun holsters to their chests in preparation for a visit to the armory. They’re preparing for war, but they still think the war is out there, in the city. They think it’s something they can approach at their own pace. They do not expect it to be here in their midst.

  She smiles.

  Her last four bullets take out the first four House Red Cap troops. After that, it gets bloody.

  She chases after her shots, goes into the first soldier high and fast, jumping to put her full weight into the blow. She catches him on the nose, drives the cartilage back, sees his eyes go black as it punctures the thin shell of bone that protects his brain. That’s five down.

  Someone throws his boots at her. She blocks them but they are heavy and they bruise. They take the momentum out of her. She needs to have momentum. She cannot weather a slow, hard slog. There must be more than thirty soldiers in this corridor. There are doors from here into the barracks.

  The next soldier comes at her low and hard, catches her around the midriff, drives her further back. She brings both elbows down, aiming for the neck. She hears vertebrae snap. The strength goes out of him.

  That’s six.

  Others are coming now. A roaring wall of them charging down the corridor, intent on smothering her. They’ve been trained well.

  She waits for them. One soldier is more eager than the others. He lunges forward heedless. She jumps. She puts her hands on his shoulders, either side of his shocked face. She flips fully over him, feet scraping the ceiling, driving him face first into the floor as his friends go sailing by. She lands just clear of his ankles. The others are already sliding to a halt, trying to figure out exactly what just happened. She doesn’t hang around to explain it to them.

  More soldiers are coming at her. The eager, dumber ones lead the charge. She ducks round one, puts her cupped hand to his ear with enough force to blow out the eardrum, but another one gets her around the legs and takes her to the floor.

  Her head slams against tile. She kicks out blindly through ringing pain. Always keep on kicking. She hits something soft, keeps kicking until her vision clears.

  Three goblins are closing fast. She rolls backwards, head over heels, ends up right under the feet of the ones she left back at the front of the hall. They kick and stamp. Her ribs start to complain fast and loud.

  This is why she needed momentum.

  She stabs a fist up, grabs a soldier by the balls. She hauls herself up as he goes down squealing. The others back up, square off, raise their fists.

  She stamps down on the fallen soldier’s face. There’s a cracking sound. One of her opponents winces.

  She keeps on stamping.

  They don’t take much of it. It’s hard to watch your friend’s face get pulped. When the first one breaks, she ducks to the side like a bullfighter, grabs him by his belt, and uses his weight and momentum to drive his face into another’s midriff. Soldiers fall like ninepins and she darts through the gap.

  But now one of these goblins has found a gun.

  They’re not supposed to have them here. Osmondo is fastidious about it. He has a fear of assassination attempts. And so guns are carefully controlled in House Red, only a handful of guards permitted them, and never those in Osmondo’s direct presence. It’s why she was taught with the sword and not the gun. Firearms are issued to troops like these only as they leave the House. That is what she was banking on. That was a critical part of the plan. But someone—and perhaps now she has more sympathy for them than ever before in her life—has disobeyed.

  There’s not much to take cover behind. There’s not much room for adrenaline to shake his aim off course. She flattens herself against a wall, and the first shot whistles by her so close it trims her trailing hair. Behind her, a goblin screams.

  The smart goblin takes a moment to wonder if he’s all that smart after all.

  She grabs
a coat from a peg on the wall, flings it at the armed soldier. It’s about as bulletproof as tissue paper but it’s another thing for him to think about, it’s something to obscure the steps she takes out of his line of fire.

  She comes in low as he aims high with his second shot, trying to avoid shooting his friends in the face. She slides across the tiles, one leg held high, catches him in the crotch. He doubles over and she relieves him of his gun. Its third shot punches a hole in his forehead and redecorates the ceiling.

  Around her goblins dive for cover.

  She’s only got three shots left. She makes them count.

  She’s already running when she fires the first shot over her shoulder. One to convince all the goblins back there that they don’t want to be heroes after all, that trying to plug her in the back isn’t worth the risk.

  Two shots left.

  She sends the next one forward, hits a big goblin in the gut. He won’t die, but he’s going to scream for a long time. Just one more thing for the goblins with hero complexes to think about.

  One shot left. Ten yards to go. Most of the corridor behind her now. The door ahead of her like a beacon. She wants to save that shot.

  The goblin comes at her through a doorway to her right. She’s almost past it. If he’d waited a fraction of a second longer, he would have come at her from behind and she would have had no chance at all.

  She flings herself sideways. He screams. He has a sword. He brings it down using both hands.

  She catches the blow on her left forearm. It bites to the bone, but it stops there. She screams as she twists her arm. She smiles while she screams. She thinks it’s the smile that makes him let go of the blade.

  She’s still smiling when she shoots him up through his chin and opens his head like a tin of soup.

  She drops the gun. She yanks the blade free with her right hand. She’s down one arm, but now she has a sword. It’s not a terrible trade.

  There’s five yards left of the corridor. She makes it, blood streaming down her arm.

  She’s through the door, she’s in the antechamber before Osmondo’s Great Hall. It’s where she means to be. Where she chooses to be. Great, obscene murals are painted on the walls, framed by ornate plasterwork. Everything is red and gold.

  Three ceremonial guards draped in regalia stand before a pair of double doors to the Great Hall. They are some of the few permitted to have rifles inside House Red. They have heard her coming. They open fire.

  She’s still moving fast. Two shots go wide. The third catches in the shoulder of her already ruined arm, spins her around and puts her on the floor. She can’t believe she’s been shot twice tonight.

  The guard should end her then, of course. He should put his second shot in her head and his third in her chest. But he’s cocky. He’s good and he wants everyone else to know it.

  Behind Sil, traumatized, raging goblins start to spill out of the door after her. They see her on the floor.

  The guard walks toward her. He swaggers. He kicks her arm with his toe. She barks in pain.

  He shoves his gun in her face.

  He doesn’t watch her hands. Because he thinks he’s won. Because he thinks this is all it takes to beat the fight out of her.

  She stabs upward with the sword. The others’ shouts come too late. And Sil hopes this guard is happy with the number of children he’s had because he won’t be having any more.

  He spasms. His shot hits the floor an inch from her ear. The barrel is still hot when she grabs it and wrenches the gun from him. Everyone is moving. She has to move faster.

  It’s hard to be accurate with the rifle when she only has one hand, so she doesn’t try to be accurate. She braces it against her hip and holds down the trigger, lets it roar its throat hoarse.

  She gets through the whole magazine in three seconds. Three seconds is long enough. Three seconds is plenty of time when you’re fighting for your own life for the first time you can remember.

  She drops the spent rifle among the fallen, screaming bodies. She picks up the sword. She’s always liked the sword more than the gun. She pushes through the double doors.

  Osmond Red is still there, waiting for her, perched on his iron throne, sneering as if it masks his fear.

  “So,” he says, “not even Mnemosyne could hold you.” He curls his lip, works his hands. “Skart was not as clever as he believed. They all fail me at the last.”

  Sil doesn’t say anything. She’s tired. Her arm is numb and heavy. The blood loss is starting to make her dizzy.

  “It is almost a shame this is as far as you’ll come.”

  He has three guards. They advance. She holds up the sword, trying to forestall them.

  “Trial—” she manages between panting breaths, “—by combat.”

  He almost laughs. “No.”

  She takes a breath. “You deny me because you’re weak,” she says. “Because you’re afraid of your own daughter. Because you think a half-fae can best you and your finest soldiers.” She goes directly for his masculinity. This is the way with goblins such as him. She knows this because the tutors he hired taught it to her. “You are nothing but a coward and a weakling.”

  If he agrees they will come at her one by one. It is the only chance she has even if it is as thin as a stiletto between the ribs.

  Osmondo sneers. “You wish to goad me? By calling the flexing of might a weakness?”

  “Is that what these guards will think,” she says, “when they tell their friends about it in the guard rooms?” She is propping herself up on the blade now.

  He looks at the guards. He has stayed in power for so long because he trusts no one, but she has been taught to transform anything into a weapon.

  The only signal that he has conceded is a single flick of his finger. Then the first guard comes at her with a flurry of fists and blows. He catches her sword blade in his hands. He twists and she can’t hold on. He throws the sword away. He kicks and sends her to the floor. He is very skilled. He is, in the end, better than her.

  He keeps his distance for a long time, though, and he’s broken two of her ribs before he’ll get in a grapple with her. She can feel the broken ends of bone grating against each other as she latches an arm around his throat. He elbows her where he’s done the damage. It should work, but she knows something he doesn’t. She knows how much worse the pain can be. She knows how much worse it will be before the end. So, she holds on until his punches lose their strength. She holds on until he goes slack and limp. She keeps holding on.

  Osmondo Red is leering. He is leaning forward in his seat.

  The second guard comes at her at full charge. He is twice her size. He is young and eager. He wants to please his lord.

  His size makes him slow, but not half as slow as most big heavy men. She ducks beneath the first two blows but the third catches her like a hammer to the side of the head. She flies through the air, crashes to the floor. The big guard is already chasing her down.

  Her ribs are starting to scream. The floor is slick with the blood spilling from her arm. She sucks the wound in her forearm. She lets him come in close. She lets him get her up in a bear hug, her ribs screaming and screaming as a third one goes.

  She spits a full mouthful of her own blood into his eyes in a hard stream. He gasps, gags. She breaks his nose with her forehead. He drops her, shaking his big head. She is almost at her leisure as she retrieves her sword and guts him. She chokes him out with a loop of his own intestine.

  Osmondo is up off his seat. His face is a rictus.

  The third guard comes at her slow and measured. He has been watching. He has been waiting until he understands her. His first blow is slow and lazy. She parries it easily, but he dances around her riposte. She parries his second and third blows. He knows she will. She still can’t hit him. He’s testing her.

  She’s so fucking tired.

  He accelerates slowly. He’s careful. He keeps his guard close. He doesn’t give her openings. She knows she needs to end th
is soon, but he won’t let her.

  He starts to smile.

  She gets desperate. He knows she will. That’s the point. She knows it is. But that doesn’t stop her from being desperate. She lunges hard. He’s been waiting for it the whole time. He’s not like the first guard. He wants her close. He grabs her wrist as she comes in, fast as a viper. He wrenches her hand. Two of her fingers snap and the sword flies free.

  He smiles.

  His smile, she thinks, isn’t like her smile. It’s unconscious. It’s true. He likes to hurt others.

  It’s the only opening she has.

  She comes at him again. He breaks her wrist this time. Both arms are useless. She kicks at his head. He catches the foot, twists until her knee screams, until she screams.

  He drops her foot. She just about stays up. She can see all his teeth. Osmondo Red is up in his chair. The head of House Red Cap is almost clapping.

  The guard comes at her one more time. The last time. She puts up the best defense she can. He comes in under it, punches her in the gut, doubles her over, brings his knee into her nose. She can hardly see through the pain and the blood. He hits her in her busted ribs. She screams again.

  He picks her up under her chin. He looks at her eye to eye. He’s still smiling.

  Because he doesn’t understand. None of them do.

  This can be survived. Whatever this man, or Osmondo Red, or this city thinks can be used to break her, she can survive it. She already has.

  She lunges her head forward. She fixes her teeth in the guard’s throat. She tears.

  When she’s done, she spits out a mouthful of flesh and blood. When she’s done, the third guard drops.

  Osmondo Red sits stock still in his chair.

  It feels like it takes a long time for her to get her sword. It feels hard to hold. Blood loss has made her one good hand numb. She makes the effort, though. She makes the effort to walk across the hall and up the steps to the iron throne.

  Osmondo Red waits for her the whole time. He’s trembling.

  “It was you who made me,” she tells him. “It was you who brought me into this world. Everything I am is because of you.” She looks at him, the blood falling off of her. “Everything that is happening now,” she tells him, “is your legacy. This is what you leave behind.”