Unclean

by A. M. Manay

  The City sat on the peninsula called the Fist. The Bay and the Cold Sea guarded three sides of the kingdom’s capital, but the south was barred instead by the Great Wall. Shiloh had never laid eyes upon it, having never entered or left the City through its enormous gates. Those gates now stood blocked by hundreds of Gernish troops and wards powerful enough to make the fog glow in the early morning sky.

  “I’m going to kill a lot of people today,” Shiloh said, heart pounding in her chest. She checked the buckle of the harness that secured her to her metal dragon, whom she had named Spike.

  “Aye,” Silas agreed. “But you’ll save a lot, too.” He put away his spyglass. “Barr reports that this is nearly the entirety of the Gernish force on the peninsula. Very few are left at Greenhill Palace, which means Westan must be poised to flee or already fled. These men are either a last stand or meant to slow us down long enough for Westan to get away.”

  “Any word from Mosspeak’s ships?” Shiloh inquired. Lord Mosspeak had sent ships to Lords Crestpoint, Kepler, and Rockmore to request assistance with the liberation of the City.

  “Lord Rockmore has closed the Gate per our request. Lord Crestpoint has sent half the navy to protect the barrier. No one will be getting out of the Bay by ship, and Westan won’t get any reinforcements from Gerne by sea. Without access to the Bay, they’d have to go by land through the Fist, and Lord Kepler has men at all his ports to prevent such assistance,” Silas assured her. “So we should not have any trouble from the south or the north.”

  “Very well. Start the bombardment,” she ordered. “Let’s get those wards down by the time the fog burns off enough for us to see what we’re doing. I’ll go get the men fired up?”

  Silas grinned. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Silas gave the word, and fifty of their strongest curse-casters set to work. The artillerymen sent their hexes arcing a mile through the sky until they fell upon the wards protecting the gates. The noise of impact carried, sizzling and booming, through the morning air. Silas turned once more to his spyglass, watching with satisfaction as the enemy’s horses bucked and pulled at their reins. The Gernish could have responded in kind, of course, but they would have had to step outside the ward in order to return fire. Shiloh had done well keeping secret her one-way ward. Thus far, the Gernish seemed content to wait to endanger themselves and tire Shiloh’s artillery.

  The cheering behind Silas brought a warm glow to his hard heart. It sounds like she has them eating out of her hand.

  Mosspeak rode up next to him. “You think they’ll fall back into the City? Make us fight house to house?”

  “That’s what I would do,” Silas answered, voice grim. “If we can draw them out, though, there is a chance we can cut them off from retreat. But what will draw them far enough to sneak some men behind them?”

  “They’d have to think they have a chance of wiping us out,” Mosspeak replied.

  The two men thought for a moment. Mosspeak began to laugh.

  “You have an idea?” Silas asked.

  Mosspeak nodded, still laughing. “You’re not going to like it much. Neither is Her Grace.”

  “You’ll choose the men to go for the gates?” Shiloh asked. Her eyes shifted from Silas to the bombardment and back, again and again, as she waited for the wards to fall.

  “Yes, Your Grace. I’ll lead them myself,” Silas replied.

  “That I do not like,” she countered.

  “I know, Your Grace. But I am the right choice,” he pressed.

  “I know,” Shiloh acknowledged. “What is the signal to begin my dive?”

  “The first few bars of ‘Honeysuckle Creek,’” Silas replied with a grin.

  Shiloh snorted a laugh. She had danced to that song the night Queen Zina had tried to humiliate her in front of the whole court, on her first night at Greenhill Palace. The choice seemed fitting.

  “Better make sure they play it good and loud,” she answered, then straightened her shoulders and pointed.

  “The ward barrier is down. Let’s get this killing done.”

  Silas surveyed the field of battle. The Gernishmen were disciplined, that was for certain, and they were prepared. What they lacked was conviction, which Shiloh’s men, at this point, had in abundance. The work of their queen among them during the march and the sight of the fallen Citadel had seen to that. And there was really no way to prepare for Shiloh herself, with her metallic menagerie raining death from above.

  The birds were even more effective, in many ways, than the dragon. She’d had the men paint them a pale blue since the last battle, which made them nearly impossible to spot until they were on top of their prey. Silas shook his head in wonder as she sent a curse through all of them at once, a hundred hexes falling at one time upon the soldiers in blue. The ones with wands had wards, which offered them some protection until she battered them down, but the commoners, the curse fodder—they fell like raindrops until he signaled Shiloh with a blue flare to pull back.

  Silas grinned with savage glee.

  What could be better than a queen worth fighting for?

  Shiloh watched from the sky as the men surged forward. Her steel birds fell upon the Gernish, mostly serving as distraction to let her own men get close enough to injure the enemy. The Gernish were better equipped, with more wizards and with better armor than her conscripts could boast. Still, with the help of the birds, and the curses Shiloh herself rained down, they were able to do some damage. Her wards were more than enough to protect her from return fire, especially since her constant motion hampered the enemy’s aim.

  Silas shot up a blue spark, and Shiloh pulled back on her birds, gradually reducing the intensity of her attack. Below her, Mosspeak and Daved held back the strongest fighters, let the Gernish think they were making headway. Every so often, they ordered the men to fall back, not too much at once, lest they arouse suspicion. But gradually, a gap opened up between the City gates and the bulk of the defending force. When the gap reached about a hundred yards, Shiloh heard the trumpets sing out a martial version of “Honeysuckle Creek.”

  “Three, two, one,” she murmured.

  A spell shot up from below, a bright red comet against the blue sky. Shiloh hovered, allowing it to hit her wards, which she then pretended to lose with a shower of dramatic sparks. She filled her lungs and let out a scream as she sent her mount hurtling toward the ground. She aimed for the marshland at the edge of the field of battle. The earth rapidly approached; she flicked her wand to send up a concealing wall of water along with the sound of a deadly impact. This gave her the cover to pull up short and land in the seagrass behind a conveniently located pile of boulders. Her metal birds she allowed to fall from the sky, lifeless, as though a puppeteer had cut all of their strings.

  The Gernish whooped in victory, thinking Shiloh dead or at least removed from the battle. They surged forward, the reserve pouring through the gates, and Shiloh’s men let them, falling back again. The Gernish didn’t realize their error until Silas and his men began to slay them from behind.

  That was Shiloh’s cue to rejoin the fight, and she leapt into the air, swooping toward the City wall, a cry rising up from her men at the sight of her flashing in the sunshine. She flew lower now, her mount spewing flames to drive the Gernish toward the bulk of her forces, where they were smashed like so many rowboats against a rocky shore.

  By the time the sounds of battle began to fade, thousands of Gernish soldiers lay dead in the dirt, along with several hundred of her own. The sight of it would give her nightmares for weeks.

  But there was no time yet for disgust or remorse, for Shiloh caught sight of a more immediate problem. The few Gernishmen who remained behind the wall, seeing the rout in progress, had begun to retreat, setting fires as they went. The wooden tenements and storefronts near the gate provided ample fuel, and smoke rose into the sky. And with the gates closed, and the battle still ongoing beyond the walls, where were the residents to flee?

  The battle seemingly well in h
and, Shiloh turned her attention to fighting the fires. Her dragon, as it turned out, could spew water as easily as flame, and she doused one tinderbox after another. Despair filled her when she saw that her efforts were not enough, not nearly enough. Plumes rose across the City, from her position in the south all the way north to the Bay.

  They had men in place poised to burn it, stationed all over town, she realized with a sinking heart. A single winged fire hose was not going to be enough. Frantically, she wracked her brain for answers.

  It needs to rain. I need to make it rain. But in the dead of summer, there are no clouds to summon.

  Her eyes turned toward the sea. I’ll draw water from the sea, make a fog so thick it will condense on every surface. I’ll bury them in a cloud to stifle the flames, give the fire brigades the chance to get things under control before the whole place goes up.

  Her eyes sought out Silas. The few Gernish survivors flew white flags, and she landed safely next to her husband.

  “They’ve lit fires in the City,” she reported, heart beating so hard inside her chest that she was sure he must be able to hear it. “I tried fighting them individually, but there are too many. They must have planned for arson in the event of a loss.”

  “Very likely,” Silas agreed, mouth grim.

  “I’m going to try to call up a fog to stifle the flames, slow down the spread,” she told him. “Do we have men enough to help the fire brigades?”

  “I’ll see to it,” Silas replied. “Daved has experience fighting fire. This makes me think Westan does intend to escape. Fire is an effective distraction. Adding fog will make it even harder to catch him or the arsonists.”

  “The people’s safety comes first,” she declared, and with that, she took flight and hovered a dozen feet above the ground. “I will not have the City burned to ashes with tens of thousands of our folk trapped in it,” she called down.

  Shiloh shot through the air, bending as close as she could to Spike’s body, making of them both an arrow slicing through the air. The wind froze her fingers and toes until, finally, she came to the crashing waves of the Cold Sea. She dove and leveled out just above the surface a few hundred yards offshore. She pointed her wand and called to the ocean, drawing it up in tiny droplets to form a wall of water vapor in the air that she sent speeding back toward land. Up and down the coast she flew for at least an hour, roiling the sea, until the whole of the City was covered in a blanket of wet, until she could see nothing of what transpired back on land.

  Hoping her frantic work had been sufficient, she headed back toward the field of battle. With all her landmarks hidden behind fog and smoke, it was hard to know if her heading was accurate. She circled, soaked and shivering, only to realize she was well north of her aim. The cathedral loomed below her, its cupola peering through the fading mist.

  The hold of her magic upon the water was fading, and it fell from the air in a drizzle, improving visibility. Below her, she could make out just a few fires still burning. On a nearby corner, a crowd was in the midst of beating a man in Gernish colors, screaming their rage at the presumed arsonist.

  Shiloh felt no pity.

  The streets were pandemonium. Panicked residents poured from homes and businesses as the flames spread, and Silas could make little headway against the streams of them pressing toward the city gates. They similarly impeded the fire brigades struggling to run hoses to the pumps.

  “This is a mess,” Daved yelled to him, fighting to control his horse in the press of the crowd.

  Silas nodded his agreement.

  This is spiraling out of control. In desperation, Silas sent a up a peculiar hex, one that caused a wave of air pressure to explode around him, knocking everyone within a dozen yards off of their feet.

  “Clear the road!” he cried. “We’re here to help put out the fires, but you must make way,” he ordered. “Be orderly! Move toward the gate, single file, on the edge of the road.” He turned to his men. “You with water wands, wet down every building you pass and move toward the smoke as quickly as possible. The rest of you are on crowd control and searching for the arsonists, all under Lord Redwood’s command. Recruit residents to help you if you can. You ten, you come with me. We make for Greenhill Palace.”

  Despite the exhaustion, the smoke, the crowds, it felt good to be back in his City, the place where he had toiled for so many years. He’d pulled Rischar out of every brothel in town and lords of the realm out of every den of iniquity. He’d been inside every rich man’s house at one time or another, met with spies in every tavern and alehouse. And Gods willing, by the end of the day, it would be Shiloh’s City, the seat of her power.

  If it doesn’t burn to the ground first.

  As though in reply, his path was obscured by a thick, fast-moving fog, so heavy with damp that water drops immediately condensed upon his clothes, running onto the cobblestones.

  Ha! That’s my girl. Try setting anything else alight in this, you Gernish pigs!

  It was hard to see much of anything, which provoked a bit of anxiety, but the sound of water dripping from every eave and the smell of damp wood did his heart good. The cries of fear and panic that had filled the City began to fade, replaced by relieved laughter and the shouted instructions of the fire brigades.

  They came to a small square full of shouting citizens who quieted when Silas and his men appeared out of the mist.

  “What is the trouble?” he asked.

  They threw down a battered man in front of Silas’s horse. A woman cried out, “I caught this man trying to set my house afire, my lord! With my children inside, my lord!”

  “Well? What say you?” Silas asked the man. Blood poured from his nose, and he shook his head.

  “Have you no defense?” Silas asked. The man began to swear in Gernish. Silas inhaled. The creature reeked of lamp oil.

  “What do we do with him, my lord?” a man cried out.

  “Find a rope. String him up.”

  And with that, Silas and his men disappeared back into the fog, followed by the cheers of the crowd and the screams of the arsonist.

  Born to Do

  “The king has sent me to offer you safe passage to Gerne,” Silas declared. He looked through the bars at Fenroh, his face revealing nothing of the glee he felt to see the Patriarch’s vile little son brought so low once again.

  The man wasn’t even in a respectable prison like the High Tower at Greenhill Palace. No, Fenroh sat, filthy and alone, in a dingy little lockup in the Fingers, where he’d been caught attempting to smuggle imported wands to his Father’s last holdouts in the Citadel.

  “His Holiness has already fled there,” Silas continued. “The king’s takeover of the church in Bryn has succeeded. The Reforms are already being implemented.”

  “Liar!” Fenroh hissed. “My father would never abandon the seat of his power.”

  Silas’s eyebrow shot up. “You really don’t know? He snuck aboard a ship last week. They smuggled him out in the laundry cart, left his most faithful servants to die in his stead.”

  “How dare you spread such lies!”

  “The king’s men will take the Citadel before another fortnight goes by. Your brothers are almost out of food. Perhaps if you’d been smuggling potatoes instead of weapons, you’d have done them some good. Now, if it were up to me, I’d have you hanged. But the king is feeling more generous, wishes to make a gesture of goodwill. Unless you’d rather stay in here with the drunks and thieves.”

  Fenroh glared through the bars. “Rischar won’t be king forever, Hatch. And when we return to Bryn in glory, the Gods will punish you for enabling the king’s heresy.”

  “I’m reasonably certain they can find real sins to punish me for, honored brother, but I’ll add that to the list.”

  From aloft, Shiloh could hear marching and found columns of her men radiating through the streets to render aid. One squadron looked to be aimed straight for Greenhill Palace, led by Silas in his plumed helmet, and she pointed herself in the same dir
ection.

  She beat them there. She took a moment to redouble her wards, just in case, and landed in front of the main entrance to the grounds. The whole place appeared to be deserted. She could see not a single guard.

  Silas arrived to see her waiting there, wand at the ready, and offered a salute and a bow.

  “Your Grace, the City is no longer aflame. The battle to our south has been won. Casualties on our side are no more than were to be expected. Lord Mosspeak took an arrow but is recovering nicely. Lords Redwood and Kepler sustained no serious injuries. I broke a fingernail but am otherwise unscathed. Your brother is on the hunt for Westan, with the help of the navy. Lady Hana will have a nasty scar on her face and a tale to tell, but Jonn assures me she will recover. She was a hellion on the field. All the men are terrified of her, and half of them are in love.”

  Shiloh laughed. “Excellent. I am cold and wet. Shall we break in, already? The wards are still up, but they feel weak,” she answered.

  “Let my officers handle the breach, please, Your Grace,” Silas suggested firmly, and he led her to the side, where they were immediately surrounded by her newly arrived guard.

  “You must be more careful with your safety, little bird,” he scolded in a whisper. “The nation depends on you.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “I’m sorry. I’m tired, and it’s making me careless.”

  A guard produced a bench, and Shiloh sat upon it. “Thank you,” she told him. Even behind the helmet, she could see his surprise. Real queens probably don’t thank their guards. Oh, well.

  “My men will sweep the grounds and the palace for booby traps. Then we will enter,” Silas told her. “Lord Mosspeak will lead his remaining men to the Claw, crossing at the narrowest part of the Bay to the south and approaching Fairview by land to surround Fenroh’s compound. They will be in place before dawn. Lord Redwood I’ve given command of the City. He will be sure there is no looting or riots, and deal with any of the arsonists still drawing breath.”