Sword and Pen

by Rachel Caine

  It had one of those odd metal tubes sticking from the front of it, and as she watched, something exploded out of it in a rush of fire and smoke, and she felt stone crack and heave as the gates blew apart, flinging fragments into the city and into the ballista company below. Greek fire globes shattered, consuming the whole squad guarding them. “Gods,” Glain breathed, and it was half a curse and half a prayer. She wanted to rush to their defense, but she looked to Rolleson. Rolleson looked just as anguished and conflicted, but Botha . . . Botha, and Santi beyond him, seemed unruffled. Santi gave orders she couldn’t hear, but they came clear in the relay.

  One company was withdrawing to fight on the ground, but Botha’s company would stay on the wall. If they all rushed down, there was nothing to stop the Russians from regrouping and storming in behind the carrier. Santi was arranging forces to prevent them from taking advantage of a temporary victory.

  The dragon landed in front of the gates where the carrier had entered and laid down a huge semicircle of fire. The Russians tried to rush forward, but automata lions leaped through the fire to take them down.

  Santi reserved his vulnerable human soldiers for the next wave.

  Glain aimed and fired at anyone stupid enough to try an approach. The rain droned relentlessly, and she felt her muscles beginning to ache from the strain. Chilled to the bone, hurting from constant adrenaline, and haunted by exhaustion. This would be a long night. A long fight.

  She very nearly missed the attack, because it came from her side of the wall. A sphinx glided out of the darkness, and the only warning she had was the shadow cast on the wall, a moving, descending darkness that made her spin around to see what was coming.

  The sphinx was gliding in talons first: a golden bird of prey about to pick off an unwary mouse.

  I’m not a mouse.

  She yelled, dodged, and dropped her rifle; it wouldn’t do any good unless she was a far better sharpshooter. As the sphinx’s sharp claws touched the stone and sparked, she rolled and lunged upward and beneath the biting jaws for where the switch was located. A split second later she remembered that the sphinx that had attacked them in the Necropolis had no off switch, and she realized that no one could save her if she’d just committed to the wrong plan; the other soldiers around her were backing off, confused and shocked, trying to continue firing on the Russians attacking the gate. No help. She had to do this alone.

  Her fingers grazed a bump in the metal skin, and she pressed it hard as the sphinx screamed and raised both front paws to claw her from neck to legs.

  It stuttered and froze, eyes dying to black.

  She braced herself and kicked out, hard, sending it toppling in an uncontrolled crash over on its back. Glain stayed where she was as she gulped for breath and watched it for any sign of recovery, but it was utterly still.

  That was when a shot shattered into the wall beside her head, and it took her a second to realize that the bullet hadn’t been fired from the Russian side. It had come from within the walls. She threw herself forward, hiding in the bulk of the dead automaton, and felt the metal shiver as more bullets struck it. There was a pause, and she quickly slithered forward to try to locate the threat. For the trajectory to be so flat, it had to be someone on a rooftop, and likely close by—there. She caught a glint of metal. She rolled back just as another volley of shots came at her and hit the stone floor; the grit under her palms was fresh, scraped by the sphinx’s claws. She was just able to reach her rifle, and pulled it toward her.

  Whoever was shooting, they weren’t aiming at anyone else. Just her. The other soldiers continued on, not oblivious to the threat but simply occupied. This was her problem. It was up to her to solve it.

  She waited for another pause and mapped what she’d seen before. The glint of metal in reflected light. She calculated that to be the targeting glass on a High Garda rifle, which put her actual target the length of her forearm behind it.

  The firing paused.

  She came up on her knees and sighted. She caught the glare of the glass, but only for an instant because it was swinging away from her.

  And toward the knot of captains where Lord Commander Santi stood.

  She took a careful, even breath, held it, gauged her distance, and fired three times. She spaced the shots so that even if she missed with one, she was likely to land two.

  No more shots came from that position, though she waited, still holding that breath until it turned stale and urgent. She was presenting a plain and perfect target.

  But the sniper didn’t take the bait.

  She’d hit him.

  Glain let the breath out and went back to her duties, firing at any Russian soldier who presented a target, until a sharp tap on her shoulder made her flinch. It was the lieutenant. “Sir?” she shouted. Her voice was too loud, but she was half-deaf from the din of battle.

  “Take your squad to the streets behind the lines, Squad Leader. There’s word of rebels down there taking shots at us. Find them!”

  “Yes, sir!” she snapped and pitched her voice to carry to her squad, even over the never-ending rattle of fire. “Blue Dogs! With me!”

  They barked the response and followed. She automatically counted heads; two missing, but the rest were uninjured. They took the ramp as fast as they dared, but Glain stopped and held them in place while she looked over the rail at the street below. The Russians’ invading armored carrier had been caught on a row of angled steel caltrops the size of cattle; its treads still spun but it got no purchase. As she watched, a High Garda soldier scrambled up on the roof of the thing, found a hatch, and flung it open. He dropped a Greek fire grenade inside and leaped clear.

  The screaming that erupted inside the metal monster was loud enough to be heard even over the thunder of battle.

  Glain swallowed at the thought of the hell inside that vehicle, and led her squad the rest of the way down. Half the ballistas were in smoking ruins, thanks to the damage done by the carrier. The night air reeked of the stench of Greek fire and something new, a sharp and unpleasantly acrid smell she supposed was due to the new explosives the Russians had brought with them. She risked a glance at the gates.

  There were no gates. Just a ragged hole in the wall where gates had been. A single iron hinge still hung limp from one surviving bolt. The only things that stood between Alexandria and the Russian forces were the High Garda, the Obscurists’ automata, and the good favor of the city’s gods. As many as they’d killed from the walls, it would not be enough. The Russians still had armored carriers and tens of thousands of soldiers to throw against these defenses, even if their new, deadly bomb throwers hadn’t withstood the dragon’s assault.

  No help for that. She had a mission to carry out. The defense of the city was Lord Commander Santi’s responsibility, not hers.

  She led the Blue Dogs away from that fight. They dodged the ruins of the first building that had been leveled by Russian explosives, and as they got free of the noise of battle, Glain slowed them down and took her bearings. The sniper had been on the roof half a block away, and the shooter had almost certainly been connected to the saboteurs; most likely the rest wouldn’t be far. This was what the Blue Dogs unit had been built to do: hunt down specific targets.

  She turned the corner, setting the Blue Dogs on a standard fan formation, four going high and the rest staying low; their spotters would tell them where to turn, and she’d deploy the team to pick off their targets, one by one.

  That was when she saw someone who seemed out of place peeping around a corner. A man she recognized, however vaguely; she never forgot a face, though it took her a few seconds to put him into place in her memory. She’d last seen him inside the Iron Tower. An Obscurist. He’d been one of those hanging back when Gregory and the Artifex had taken them all prisoner, and Wolfe’s mother had given her life to save theirs.

  What was an Obscurist doing out here, in the middle of a
pitched battle zone, wearing common street clothing?

  Nothing good.

  She started to give a command, but stopped as a gleaming automaton stalked around the other corner and came toward him. It was a big Roman-style lion, and it was unnaturally large, this one; it made the normal Alexandrian versions look like lapdogs. It moved so quietly, too.

  She thought for a moment it was hunting him, but no. It was with him.

  She couldn’t hear the commands the Obscurist gave the thing, but in seconds it responded. The lion let out a deep-throated growl and bounded off, running flat out toward the corner. Not toward them. Away.

  Glain grabbed her second and said, “You have command. I need to follow the beast.”

  “Sir, what are you doing? You can’t go alone!”

  She didn’t wait to argue about it; there wasn’t time. She needed to stop whatever dire damage the lion had just been sent to inflict.

  Though what she was going to do when she caught the thing, she had no idea.

  Yet she had no choice.

  She was no runner like Jess, but she was competent enough; she’d studied form and practiced hard, and though she got no joy in it, she could put on speed, if not his particular grace. The lion was moving fast, though. Too fast. Despite her best efforts, burning lungs and legs, she couldn’t catch it. Couldn’t even track it. Glain hated to admit defeat, but she knew she had to outsmart it, not outrun it.

  She slumped against the wall of what would usually be a busy bakery but was silent as the grave tonight, and removed her Codex as she gasped for breath. Her legs were shaking with the effort, and she let herself slide down to a sitting position to brace herself for writing.

  She sent the first message to Captain Botha, reporting what she’d seen. Then Wolfe, Dario, Khalila, Thomas, and Morgan, telling them where she’d last seen the creature and where she was. Not Jess; she didn’t want to tempt him to leave the Medica building. Not Santi, who couldn’t be distracted in the middle of this battle. She needed everyone on this; she had the feeling the automaton’s orders would be something awful and very important. Having written it, she waited for messages back.

  Morgan was the first, and she said, I’m tracking it. Attempting to gain control.

  Glain concentrated on slowing her breathing and letting her body rest a moment. The reply came from Dario, too. He was heading out from the Serapeum. Don’t be a fool and do this alone. Tell me where you are. Rich, coming from him. But she appreciated the sentiment. She dashed off a quick reply to give him the cross streets.

  Nothing back from Wolfe or Thomas. Khalila wrote that she couldn’t leave the Serapeum but that any resources needed by any of them that were not devoted to the battle at the gates were theirs to command.

  Morgan’s distinctive handwriting appeared as she began to acknowledge Khalila’s message. She wrote, It’s coming for you, Glain.

  Glain read it, but before she had time to truly take it in she heard a low, rumbling growl. Not thunder this time. The rain was starting to slow, and she looked up to see the lion padding down the center of the empty street.

  Glain stood up, slamming her Codex back in her belt, and readied her rifle. It was possible—dimly possible—to stop a lion with a precision shot to the eye, but in reality she wasn’t quite that good. Worth a try, though. She knew she couldn’t outrun the thing, and though she knew how to turn the regular models off, if this one had been modified it would be her last mistake. And this one seemed . . . modified.

  Why was it stalking her? She just wasn’t that important.

  The lion came for her at a quick, straight trot. Even as much experience as she had with automata, this one had a special dread for her, and she couldn’t even think why. Something in the proportions. The way it moved. The way its eyes gleamed, as if it was hungry.

  Another explosion at the northeast gate. She felt it through the wall of the bakery, the stones beneath her feet, but she couldn’t afford to turn to look.

  She slowly let out her breath and fired for the thing’s glowing red eye.

  She missed. Not by much, a fraction of an inch. The bullet struck metal instead of the hardened glass of the eye. Didn’t even leave a scratch.

  The lion broke into a run. It was seconds away, and she fired again, but this shot was even less precise. She wanted to run, every instinct screamed for it, but she set herself like a mountain. I will not move.

  Out of nowhere, she remembered something from a book she’d read back at Ptolemy House as a student. The gods conceal from us the happiness of death, that we may better endure life.

  Oddly cheering, in this moment when she saw death coming straight for her.

  “What the hell are you doing, just standing there?” a voice in her ear said, and a hand pulled her elbow and yanked her around the corner, out of the lion’s sight. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  She knew the severe tone before she saw his face. Scholar Wolfe. Of course. That was why the lion had come this way.

  It wasn’t after her at all. It was locked on him.

  She was just in the way.

  “Run!” she said. “I’ll keep it busy.”

  “Not alone you won’t.” That was Jess, who—she realized with a shock—was leaning with one hand on a wall not far away. She really must be slipping; she hadn’t even noticed him at first. “We can work together. We have to.”

  “No time, it’s coming!” She ripped free of Wolfe’s grasp. “It’s after you. Get out of here! Now!”

  She felt a sudden burst of air from behind her, and felt a wave of heat simmer over her skin; for a horrible second she thought it was Greek fire and they were all dead, but then she saw Jess’s face and knew exactly what had happened.

  She turned and found Morgan had appeared behind her. She’d Translated in, though how that was possible without a configured Translation Chamber Glain couldn’t even imagine. Pure power, most likely.

  “Move!” Morgan shouted, and Glain did, diving out of her way toward Jess. The least she could do was stand between the walking wounded and the fight. Morgan stepped in front of Wolfe, who did not seem pleased by it.

  The lion padded around the corner and stopped to assess the situation. Its massive head turned to regard Wolfe. Morgan, in front of him, looked very small in comparison.

  Glain put a flat hand against Jess’s chest as Jess tried to move forward. “No,” she said. “She can do this.”

  The lion came toward Wolfe. Morgan stepped toward it, hand outstretched. Glain tensed as the lion’s jaws opened, revealing a horrifying array of teeth. It could snap her in half, easily.

  It simply . . . stopped.

  “There you are,” Morgan whispered. “Someone’s rewritten you. Removed you from the system. They’ve made you their pet killer.” Her fingers twitched, as if she were holding an invisible pen and writing on thin air. “He’s very good, your master. But arrogant.”

  “What are you doing?” Glain asked. She didn’t think Morgan would answer, but she had to ask it.

  “Repairing her,” Morgan said. “She’s not meant to do this. Her mission is to protect the Great Library, not to hunt down Scholars. I’m sending her where she needs to be.”

  The lion slowly closed its jaws, and blinked, and its eyes faded to yellow. Still unnerving, and Glain didn’t relax until it let out an ear-splitting roar, turned, and ran in the direction of the northeast gate.

  Morgan had already turned toward Scholar Wolfe. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, and then looked at each of them in turn. Glain didn’t like the shimmer in her eyes, or the feeling she got from her. Too . . . hot, somehow. Too full of energy, like power was about to burst out of her. “Scholar . . . the Obscurist who made these changes is still working for the old Archivist. I can track him. We need to stop him before he does something worse.”

  “He probably already has,” J
ess said. He sounded exhausted. “Do you know him? Who he is?”

  “I can find him.” She nodded. “He’s close.”

  “What about the old man?” Wolfe asked. “Surely he can’t be far away, either. He can’t Translate out; Eskander’s cut that off from him. Santi’s blocking his way out from any of the other gates. His only chance at escape is through the chaos at the northeast gate.”

  “So he’ll be close to the battle and looking for his chance,” Jess said. “Or creating one if he can.”

  “Likely,” Wolfe said. “We need to find him. Let’s finish this.”

  “Khalila’s offered us resources,” Glain volunteered. “We should take advantage of that. We don’t know who’s with him, or how many guns he’s got on his side. We need to find a spot and lure him into it. If we engage him in the middle of the High Garda army—”

  “Confusion,” Jess said. “She’s right, sir. We need to draw him to a place of our choosing, and be ready.”

  Wolfe looked to each of them, and finally, to Glain. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll place it in your hands, Wathen. Don’t disappoint.”

  She touched her fist to her heart. “My pleasure, Scholar.” She hesitated. “I’m not sure he’ll fall for anything that comes from me, sir. Perhaps you could draw him in?”

  “Probably not. He’d automatically assume it was a trap,” Wolfe said. “I can’t think of any of us he’d believe . . .” His voice trailed off, and though he didn’t finish the thought, Jess did.

  “Oh, I think you can,” he said. “Because I’m thinking the very same thing.”

  And as if he’d been conjured up out of the rain, Dario Santiago rounded the corner and said, “Dios, what did I miss?”

  EPHEMERA

  Inscription on the wall of the Great Archives of Alexandria

  In this place we burn the lamp of knowledge that never goes out.