Knight of Stars

by Tom Lloyd

  Llaith spat out a mouthful of wine. ‘Hah, yeah,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘What a mistake that’d be.’

  ‘Movement!’ called the Card assigned to the nearer window, Colet. She leaned further out of the window. ‘One of you with the weird eyes, come take a look. I think they’re leaving.’

  Before Lynx knew what was happening, Llaith and Toil had each raised one of Lynx’s hands.

  ‘Well volunteered that man,’ Anatin smirked. ‘Go on then.’

  With a shake of the head Lynx did just that. Colet leaned close and pointed. ‘That’s one, right?’

  He nodded. ‘And there’s the little one. Where’s the one Lastani iced?’

  ‘Round there I think,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘Ah yes. Curled up to die, with any luck.’ He scanned around. ‘We’re missing one.’

  ‘Maybe in there,’ Colet said, ‘down the big street they attacked from.’

  ‘That’s three heading back the way they came,’ Lynx called over his shoulder. ‘It’s promising.’

  ‘Good!’ Anatin shouted back. ‘Now just stand there until you see ’em crawl back into the cliff.’

  Muttering curses, Lynx returned to the vigil, but Toil brought him another cup and touched Colet on the shoulder, indicating that she should go back to the tables. The green-eyed woman gave her a look of slight surprise but didn’t wait for an explanation.

  ‘Is this better?’ Toil whispered to Lynx after he’d pointed out the ones still in sight.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fighting these horrors above ground?’

  He managed a smile at that. ‘Sure, better.’ Lynx winced. ‘Not exactly good, but I’m certainly glad we’re not underground again.’

  ‘Don’t say I never listen to your requests,’ she said with a smile. ‘But … better? You’re good right now?’

  He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Ah, I guess so. Terror’s chased all the demons away, or something anyway. That’s healthy right? I mostly need sleep at the moment. Too drained for much else.’

  ‘We all do. I’d like to work out a plan first though.’

  ‘Plan?’

  ‘For dusk tomorrow.’

  Lynx shook his head. ‘Shattered gods, Toil. Can’t we get past this night first?’

  She shook her head. The fatigue was obvious in the dark rings around her eyes, but he knew she wasn’t one to give in to tiredness. ‘I like to have a plan. Won’t get to sleep without one.’

  ‘So we’ll go see your new friends and gather a load more earthers. Enough to finish off three of the bastards this time.’

  ‘They can’t produce many in a day,’ Toil said. ‘Not enough given how many we used on that bastard.’

  ‘Ah shit.’ Lynx was still a long moment then turned around to look at the whole assembled company. ‘Hey, you lot! Can anyone think of a plan for the other three golantha? One that doesn’t rely on us finding a few hundred earthers in a city that just got ’et by magic-hungry monsters?’

  There was a long moment of quiet. Eventually, Toil muttered, ‘Really? You’re just throwing it out to the group?’

  ‘No idea’s too stupid right now.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  He grinned. ‘Heh, that must’ve been the drink talking. Still, some aren’t total idiots and they’re all survivors. There’s loads of experience and killer instinct in this room, even if it’s been somewhat preserved in spirits.’

  Toil waited a while. ‘I wish Lastani was here. Girl didn’t have much common sense, but she could approach a problem with a clear head. I can use a mind like that, sharp and bright and ready to be turned to purpose.’

  ‘Well she ain’t here,’ Lynx growled. ‘She’s dead and much as she deserves more, we can mourn her if we survive the week.’

  Toil paused. ‘Yes, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss.’

  She gave him a look that he couldn’t interpret, but there was no joking there that he could see.

  ‘I’m not,’ Toil said at last. ‘I just … no, nothing. Forget it.’

  The silence around them continued. The longer it went on, the more a sense of gloom seemed to descend over the mercenaries. Just when Lynx was about to give up and get back to drinking, a hand was raised.

  Everyone turned. The patrician face of Atieno tightened under the scrutiny, but he didn’t hesitate.

  ‘No earthers?’

  ‘I can’t believe we’ll find enough in time,’ Toil confirmed. ‘Or get enough made.’

  ‘Then I may have an alternative.’

  ‘But you’re only bringing it up now?’ coughed Anatin, slamming his palm against the stone table top. ‘Dammit man!’

  ‘It’s ah …’ Atieno hesitated. ‘It is not a good alternative.’

  ‘We’re all out of good ones,’ Toil said with a wolfish grin. ‘Stupid and fucking insane ideas are all that’s left to us. Fortunately that’s our strong suit.’

  ‘Then I need to see your friends at the Waterdancer Guild.’

  Dawn came all too soon. One moment Lynx had given up on his fitful attempt to sleep, listening to the snores of his comrades, the next there was a glow of light at the window. The Cards had settled down quickly; too weary to drink hard, too drained to play any more than a few desultory hands of Tashot.

  Toil had burrowed into his lee, working herself into a space that was apparently comfortable and drifting straight off. Visions of claws and mandibles kept interrupting Lynx’s own efforts, however. Each twitch was rewarded by Toil’s elbow or chin pressed deeper, like a cat objecting to its owner’s comfort, but something akin to sleep took him until first light at least. When the rising sun became too insistent to ignore, Lynx went to search upstairs for something to eat.

  A tankard of beer slaked the morning thirst, but if there’d been any food it hadn’t lasted the night. He was about to give up and head downstairs when instinct prickled at his neck. Fingers tightening around the tankard, Lynx turned to discover it was only Sitain, watching him from under a looted window drape.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, the words escaping as a croak that prompted him to take another swig of beer. ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘How do you think?’ she said, sitting up. There was a defiant look in her eye, as though she was just daring him to comment on the tears streaking her cheeks.

  ‘You two were close.’

  ‘Close enough. She wasn’t just some dumb-fuck merc. That’s rare in my life right now.’

  He let that comment go. This morning wasn’t going to look pretty to any of them and he was used to Sitain’s particular brand of cheeriness.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Now?’ Sitain stood and brushed herself down. Even with the new clothes her recent pay had bought, the young woman looked bedraggled. Hair plastered and greasy, cheeks thin, eyes bloodshot. ‘Now we go find a way to kill these things.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘What else do you want? My life ain’t my own, that much has been made clear, but those things need to die. If I can help, I will.’

  Lynx nodded. He didn’t much care for the look in her eye. It had something of Toil’s sharpness about it, but in a more fragile package. She was right though, they had a job to do. The time for worrying about what had been broken could wait.

  ‘Got anything left after last night?’

  ‘I’m tired. Dead tired, if I’m honest, but I’ll manage. Come on, let’s get them moving.’

  Rousing the rest of the company turned out to be nothing a few kicks couldn’t fix. Before the sun was much higher the Cards had gathered their kit with a minimum of complaints and started down the various flights of stairs through the tor. A few faces met them on the enclosed stone streets, more at the window-openings of apartments, but the district remained subdued by the time they reached what passed for ground level in Vi No Le.

  There they paused, some unspoken thing passing between them as the Cards stared down the half-open avenue towards Si Jo. No one much w
anted to go and inspect the destruction, but a moment of silence was spared all the same. Lynx could see the bones of shattered buildings from where they stood; jagged walls, thin trails of smoke and silence broken only by the harsh cry of scavenger birds.

  ‘Come on,’ Anatin ordered after a short while. ‘Time to get back to the lodging house and see if any of our lost lambs made it home.’

  With Teshen in the lead, the Cards tramped back to Auferno. They did their best to ignore the cries and laments that slowly built across Vi No Le’s islands. Even at the high bridge that crossed the main channel into the lagoon, between Nquet Dam and Auferno districts, they avoided looking back at the battered islands behind.

  Auferno mourned too, home to the Shard’s Rest and many guilds, but it wasn’t as brutalised as Vi No Le. There the events of the last night took on a more surreal quality in Lynx’s mind. It was like walking out of a nightmare – not quite into wakefulness, but at least a dream where he could pretend for a while longer.

  Most of the Cards slunk back to their beds once they reached the lodging house, watched by the disappointed owners who’d clearly hoped they’d died in the fighting. They didn’t speak when Anatin threw himself in a chair and asked, remarkably politely given his bloodshot eyes and heavy limbs, for some hot food to be brought out.

  Lynx lingered, seeing the Knights of the company join their commander without a word. Soon he was waved into a seat by Anatin, alongside Kas, Atieno, Toil, Llaith and Aben. Neither Card who’d gone missing, Crais and Sethail, were waiting and no one seemed optimistic.

  ‘Guess we need a plan,’ Anatin said at last. ‘Atieno, are you sure about what you said last night?’

  ‘Sure enough.’

  ‘That’s all I get?’

  The tall mage ran his fingers through his dark beard as he thought. ‘You want more?’ He shook his head. ‘I have nothing to offer, only my belief.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t work?’

  ‘Then I will be dead. Everyone nearby too.’

  ‘But come nightfall, we won’t be left standing with our dicks in our hands and only harsh language to throw at the monsters?’

  ‘Ah, I see. No. If it works, we will know. Any mage in the city will be able to tell you so. Perhaps the marked Cards too. It … ah, it will not be a good thing.’

  ‘No good things here,’ Anatin muttered. ‘If you’re willing to risk your life, I’ll take that guarantee.’ Anatin looked around at the assembled mercenaries. ‘Now – assuming it does all work, we’ll be limited to a few. A strike team up against those monsters. Is that a problem for anyone?’

  No one spoke, but Lynx could see Aben looking round.

  ‘Aben?’

  The big man shrugged. ‘I’m Toil’s man,’ he said. ‘I ain’t arguing if she ain’t. I just follow orders.’

  ‘And now you’re following mine.’ Anatin scowled, the sparker-scar on his cheek twisting further under the expression. ‘I don’t much give a shit about anyone’s opinion now. We’ve got blood in the game and I for one don’t much want to run away.’

  ‘Sure about that?’ Payl asked softly. ‘We’re ordinary mercs, most of us anyway. Get paid and live long enough to spend it.’

  He turned to face her. Payl was his right-hand woman and the pair were close enough he wasn’t going to take her words the wrong way. Her young lover, Fashail, had been killed on the wall when the Mastrunners attacked. Lynx could see grief like a ghost in her shadow, but one she wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet.

  ‘Mebbe I’m getting old,’ Anatin said. ‘Mebbe hanging around some o’ you fools has rubbed off. I ain’t taking any more blame for this shit-storm than I have to, but between friends … hells, we’re in it and who else is there? This ain’t our home, this ain’t our fight really, but I ain’t a monster who’ll turn his back either.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Toil said, leaning forward. ‘We can dress it up in self-interest later. The pay, the fame, the favours it’ll win – whatever means other merc crews don’t point and laugh, but this is a fight we need to win. This city’s gone otherwise.’

  ‘How kind of you,’ called a voice from the courtyard’s main entrance.

  They all turned to see a figure lingering in the shadows of the hallway. She stepped forward – it was Sanshir, Teshen’s former lover. Her clothes were torn and bloodstained, her face bruised and further darkened by simmering fury.

  Anatin sighed and stood as he recognised her.

  ‘Now’s not the time for this argument.’

  Sanshir paused. ‘I just presided over a massacre. I saw good men and woman torn apart in front of me. Friends of mine killed almost by accident. You may be the arseholes who started it all, but I’ve got better things to do than blame you right now.’

  ‘Why are you here then?’

  ‘You took one down, what else? Half my crews are dead so far as I can tell, including my best. Insar alone knows what mages survived that, but you managed to take one down. I’ve seen its body. We can’t get too close for the tysarn feeding on it, but it’s dead. If you’re the best tools for the job of saving Caldaire, you are what I will use.’

  Anatin nodded. ‘We’ve got a plan – of sorts anyways. We used near enough all our earthers to kill that one. The things are too clever for the same trick twice an’ it took one hell of a beating. If the second one had climbed up, we’d be dead.’

  ‘Tell me your plan then.’

  Anatin hesitated. From behind Sanshir, one of the owners came out carrying a great glazed pot, sky-blue in colour and containing what turned out to be rice porridge.

  ‘Join us – we’ll tell you as we eat. After that we’re gonna hold a gun to some mage’s head. All in the interests o’ saving your city, o’ course.’ He grinned.

  Chapter 39

  ‘Is anyone else stuck on all the ways this plan could go wrong?’

  Lynx’s question was met with mostly silence and scowls at first. It was almost like that wasn’t the most helpful thing to say at this point. Finally, some people started to shake their heads.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘I was trying not to.’

  ‘It’s not like we could make things worse at this point, ’cept for us ending up dead.’

  That last comment from Sitain brought a round of scornful looks. She reddened slightly. ‘What? How could it get worse at this point?’

  Lynx raised a finger. ‘Firstly, being dead isn’t popular in the Cards, what with us being money-grubbing thugs who prefer getting paid to fighting. Secondly, these are creatures of magic an’ we’re basically going to throw some new magic at them. It might be we end up faced with something even more horrifying than we did yesterday, instead of a pile of insect-mush.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ Atieno said from the far end of the table.

  They were seated around an oval stone table at one end of the Waterdancer Guild’s central courtyard – five Cards plus Sanshir and three senior mages. The mages seemed a genial lot, all in shades of blue and white, with a fat woven belt bearing their guild colours, but looked shocked by their losses.

  The guild itself was beautiful. This was one of the oldest in the city and while it was small, it occupied a prestigious position on the lagoon shore. The stone had been sculpted with a level of artistry normally reserved for palaces. Every doorway and window bore intricate decoration, while the stone floor itself contained swirling patterns like a branching river. Stone archways ringed the interior of the courtyard in typical local manner, detailed with leaves and creatures of all types and supporting a canopy of pungent wisteria for most of the sixty-yard perimeter.

  There were troughs of water and a snarl of wooden hoops at the other end from the Cards where the mages practised their art, but any lessons had been cancelled in light of last night’s calamity. The senior mages with them, led by a man with pale, bluish-tinted skin and crazed white eyebrows called Ustirtei, were all very old. Clearly they had sent younger, stronger mages in their
stead to the slaughter. The weight of mourning and guilt lay heavily upon their shoulders.

  Lynx suspected under any other circumstances, the Cards would have been thrown out of the guild’s grounds by now – whatever the threat, whoever it was accompanying them. Instead they were too dazed and shocked to argue much, leaving Sanshir to treat their cooperation as assumed.

  ‘How long will it take?’ the Vi No Le Kaboto asked.

  Atieno spread his hands helplessly. ‘The theory is simple – the basic magic I could perform now, with assistance.’

  ‘So how long?’

  Atieno didn’t reply, only cast a look towards the three guild mages. Ustirtei blinked at them, as though waking from a bad dream.

  ‘I … this is not known.’

  He broke off and turned to his colleague, a leathery old man with crew tattoos on his eyebrow and cheek. He still wore a red Casteril headscarf over his shaved head, though it had to have been fifty years since he’d run with any crew of that district. They exchanged a few rapid-fire sentences then the second man nodded.

  ‘This thing is unknown,’ he said. ‘For this we must test. It would be weeks before we would normally be ready.’

  ‘We’ve got a few hours.’

  The man stared at Sanshir, open-mouthed. ‘This is madness!’

  ‘This is our best option,’ she snapped back. ‘Many have died already – the city will not survive weeks.’

  ‘Surely there’s a way to estimate,’ Toil broke in. ‘You’ve produced weapons before. You must have a process whatever ammunition you’re producing.’

  ‘This is not ammunition!’ the man shouted back, his cracked voice betraying the weight of fear and loss. ‘This is heresy and madness! This is more risk than we can ask of any mage. The process is not simple even if this man was not involved. To use an unknown process, one written about only as a warning to others, is already a great danger—’

  ‘More risk than heading out at sundown and trying to fight the golantha?’ Toil said, interrupting.

  ‘I … both are more than we can ask of any mage.’

  ‘One’s going to happen come sundown,’ she replied, sounding calm and matter-of-fact rather than angry or threatening. The subject at hand meant anything more was unnecessary. ‘Whether you want it or not, that’s beyond your control. The only question is whether you want a shot at survival.’