Forged

by Benedict Jacka

  Wind roared around my ears as I plummeted. Er, November said as the cars below me grew larger and larger, along with the pale spots of faces looking upwards. I’m detecting some odd signals. Is everything going according to plan?

  Fine! I pulled a life ring from my pocket and broke it, leaving it as late as possible. Blood rushed through my body as I decelerated, the magic slowing me down just in time to drop the last few feet safely to the tarmac.

  Scattered screams sounded, trailing off: several people had seen me fall and were now staring in confusion. Two police cars were blocking off the street at the intersection, and a uniformed officer was looking at me openmouthed. I sprinted past him and turned north up Bishopsgate.

  Oh. Well, that’s a relief.

  There were more police outside Heron Tower and a couple turned to look as I ran, but most were shading their eyes as they looked up towards the broken crane above. On an unrelated note, I told November, I could use the exact departure times of mainline trains from Liverpool Street Station in the next, say, three to five minutes.

  Of course. Er, I don’t mean to worry you, but there’s an alert going out on police frequencies for someone that matches your description rather closely. Apparently you’re considered a suspect for a terrorist attack on Heron Tower and to be apprehended on sight.

  Just get me those trains.

  The plaza outside Liverpool Street Station was busy, commuters hurrying back and forth. Police lights were flashing farther up the road. I saw the black of police uniforms moving towards me and I turned quickly aside and down the escalators into Liverpool Street Station.

  The station was huge, filled with noise and people. Departure boards blinked along the right-hand side, above the ticket gates. I wound my way through the crowds, searching the futures for signs of pursuit. Nothing yet, but through the crowds, I saw a pair of police officers at the centre of the station floor, and the futures in which I got too close to them turned violent fast.

  The next train departing Liverpool Street will be the Greater Anglia service to Norwich from platform eleven, leaving in—

  What are the police saying?

  There was an unconfirmed sighting of you descending onto the main floor of Liverpool Street Station. They’re asking for additional units to seal the exits.

  I briefly considered knocking the two police out, but it would draw too much attention. Besides, it would be really bad if I was in the middle of dealing with them and—

  The futures shifted.

  —and something like that happened. I turned right, bumping past someone dragging a heavy suitcase, and strode through the ticket gates. As I did, I reached out through the dreamstone. Cinder.

  Cinder replied straightaway, sounding bad-tempered. Where are you?

  Liverpool Street Station. You still engaged?

  No, they’re all chasing you. Where’s Del?

  Chasing me, where do you think? The massive iron-and-glass roof of the train sheds arched overhead. Liverpool Street’s platform area is huge enough that I could count on the police taking some time to track me down. My magical pursuers were another story.

  The Greater Anglia train was white-painted with red doors, humming. A whistle shrilled from down the platform as I stepped aboard. Only a few seconds later, the beep-beep-beep sounded, and the doors hissed shut.

  I’m on the Norwich train leaving now, I told Cinder. I walked up the train, winding my way between the seats. The train was about two-thirds full, and I had to twist aside to avoid a fat man struggling to get his briefcase into the overhead racks.

  Where’s Del?

  If I’m lucky, back in Liverpool Street with those mercenaries and about fifty police. I opened the door to the next carriage and stepped through. The train swayed under my feet as I walked, the wheels going thunkity-thunk as it accelerated, and I had to make an effort to keep my balance, all while searching the futures for danger, looking for the telltale signature of gate magic with my magesight, and keeping open the mental links to Cinder and to November all at the same time.

  The windows went black as the train entered a tunnel, brightened as we came out into the sun, went black again. I watched closely for any signs of gating. Combat adepts are dangerous, but they usually don’t have the detection abilities that mages do. I’d very carefully not done anything between the street and the train that would show up on magesight. With any luck, they wouldn’t be able to follow me. And Rachel hadn’t gotten close enough to see what train I’d boarded. There shouldn’t be any way she should be able to figure out that I was on this train—

  Rachel was going to gate onto this train.

  I swore out loud. Several passengers glanced up at me from where they were seated, then looked hurriedly away. I was still wearing my combat armour, plus whatever dust and dirt I’d picked up from the fighting. I didn’t know what I looked like, but judging from the way people were shying away, it wasn’t reassuring. Cinder, your psycho ex is following me. You want to make up with her, get on board.

  On my way.

  Er, Mr. Verus, November said. Is this a bad time?

  No, no, it’s just wonderful, I said. Rachel is going to gate into the back carriage in about twenty seconds. What did you want to talk about in the meantime?

  Well, it’s just that I’ve intercepted some communications from Mage Barrayar. Apparently he’s received a report from Crash’s team that they suspect you of being aboard one of two trains departing Liverpool Street, and he’s calling in reinforcements. He seems quite agitated.

  What kind of—you know what, I don’t have time. Where’s Crash’s team?

  I believe two of them are teleporting onto this train now.

  Oh, come on!

  A flicker of space magic from up ahead confirmed the news. Now I had Rachel behind, and the adepts in front.

  “Fine,” I muttered to myself. I strode forward to the next set of carriage doors and found the nearest toilet. It was vacant, which spared me the embarrassment of having to evict someone. I closed the door, locked it, and waited.

  Standing in the cramped space, balancing on the swaying floor, I had time to wonder at how crazy my life was. I was hiding in a train toilet so that I could ambush my insane ex-fellow-apprentice water mage and draw her into a fight against a group of adept mercenaries who were after me to steal back an artificial intelligence that I was carrying because it could give me leverage on one of the people running the country who’d originally wanted me dead because I’d failed to get him the artefact that was currently eating its way up my arm but who had only managed to get me sentenced to death because I’d failed to cover up the crimes that my ex-girlfriend had committed while possessed by a jinn.

  How had I managed to end up like this?

  I shook it off. Back to work.

  Rachel was approaching from one side, the adepts from the other. I adjusted the futures with the fateweaver, pulling Rachel in, slowing the adepts down. The creak of a door sounded from outside as Rachel entered my carriage. She stopped just outside.

  I yanked open the door just as Rachel was about to fire, catching her by wrist and throat and slamming her against the side of the train. Her spell went high, disintegrating the roof right above us and bringing a roar of wind and noise and dust down into the carriage. Rachel’s eyes stared into mine from behind her mask, shock and fury mixed together as she struggled to break my grip.

  I could have killed Rachel in that moment. Two things stopped me: my promise to Cinder, and the other targets. Rachel tried another disintegration ray, and I forced her hand away, lining the spell’s futures up with the length of the train just as the door at the far end of the carriage flew open and Stickleback stepped through.

  The green ray flew the length of the carriage, missing the shocked and yelling passengers on the seats, and hit Stickleback square-on. She managed to throw up one of her violet force fields;
it almost stopped the spell, but not quite. A thread of the ray brushed her side and she fell back, her face contorting in pain. Rachel fired another ray and I aimed it to finish Stickleback off, but another future cut across: Jumper blinked into existence just before the strike could land and opened up a portal that the ray disappeared into.

  The passengers on the train were screaming and the wind was roaring through the hole above. Rachel and I struggled, swaying back and forth. Rachel’s shock had been replaced with rage and she tried to kick me, then when that didn’t work reconfigured her shield into a short-range disintegration ring. I jumped up, bounding off the wall to get my feet above the lethal green pulse, caught the edges of the hole in both hands, and kicked Rachel in the face. She went sprawling, her magic shredding the door, and I pulled myself up through the hole and onto the train roof.

  Wind whipped at me, blasting at my hair and sliding off my armour. We’d come out of the tunnels and onto a stretch of open track, the landmarks of east London opening up before us. To my left the Olympic stadium was sliding past, while to the right I could see the towers of Canary Wharf. I ran forward, pushing against the wind, my feet echoing with dull thuds on the roof as I kept my balance against the sway of the train.

  A green ray shot up into the sky above and behind, followed by another as Rachel fired blind through the roof. I felt the surge of force magic below as Stickleback answered, but it was aimed at Rachel, not me. I jumped a carriage and kept running, putting distance between us.

  Mr. Verus, November said anxiously. I’m having trouble tracking our location. Are we safe?

  Yes! I jumped another carriage. Just perfect, but I’m a LITTLE busy!

  Well, it’s just that Barrayar is vectoring—

  I felt a thump vibrate through the roof and looked back to see Crash straightening from where he’d landed. He started towards me, breaking into a charge, keeping his balance seemingly without effort on the swaying train.

  There was no room to dodge this time. I made my decision in a split-second, turned, and leapt at Crash feet first.

  The wind that had been checking me became my ally, and my feet slammed into Crash’s stomach, throwing him nearly head over heels. He slammed back onto the roof, scrabbling for purchase, only barely stopping himself from rolling off the edge. I fell a little more gracefully and hauled myself up as Crash rose to face me. He looked pissed off but there was a wariness in his eyes now, and as he advanced his stance showed more respect.

  We roared through Stratford station, passing the Westfield shopping centre to the north, a wide pedestrian bridge rolling past overhead. Shocked faces looked up at us from the platforms as we flashed by. Why the hell is this train still moving? I asked November as Crash edged forward. You have access?

  Of a sort . . .

  Crash jabbed at me. He’d taken a kickboxing stance, and I shifted instinctively to counter as he tried more jabs followed by a cross. I stepped back, deliberately staying just within range for the spinning kick he’d tried before. A move like that would make him an easy target on the shifting train, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead he shifted his hands into a guard that I’d seen used by military special forces types. I switched to a Krav Maga stance, hands loose. The driver’s board should be lit up like a Christmas tree. Why hasn’t he stopped?

  But that was what I was trying to tell you, November said. Crash struck at my eyes; I twitched aside and hit him in the shoulder to no effect. It’s Barrayar. He’s overridden jurisdiction from the Metropolitan Police and he’s ordered the driver to maintain speed while they call in a response team.

  Crash kept attacking, his movements tight and aggressive. His force magic made his blows faster than they should have been, not just on the strike but also on the recovery, giving me few openings. His toughness and his lack of reaction to hits reminded me of Caldera, but Crash was faster. The wind roared as we traded kicks and punches.

  Crash moved in, striking low, and this time I had to jump back. I could hear the clattering of rotors off to my side, but couldn’t afford to take my eyes off the adept. What did you say about a response team? I asked November.

  Well, can you see a helicopter in the area?

  What do you mean, a—? I began, then looked left.

  A black-and-yellow helicopter with POLICE written along its side was flying parallel to the train a short distance away. It was close enough that I could see the pilot through the canopy, his face hidden by a helmet, looking straight ahead as he controlled the machine. The side doors on the helicopter were open, one man holding the doorframe, and a second crouched in the centre of the helicopter, aiming some kind of mounted weapon. I could see bipod legs, an ammo box, and a long metal barrel. It looked like a light machine gun.

  As it turned out, it was.

  The weapon opened up with an echoing duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Futures of violent death flashed on my precognition; I snatched ones that I needed and twisted aside, bullets zipping by my head with an eerie whickering sound. I caught a glimpse of Crash jumping backwards. The gunner kept firing, his touch controlled and professional, short aimed bursts. Chips of metal flew from the roof as bullets tore holes at my feet.

  A green beam flashed past, and I spared a glance to see that Rachel was back. She was up on the roof three carriages down, trying to snipe me with a disintegration ray. I didn’t have time to think about it: it was just one more variable in a set of futures already crowded with images of my own death. I saw myself die singly and in clusters, to bullets and disintegration and the train’s racing wheels, jagged flashes of blood and pain fading to darkness. My focus narrowed to the next five seconds, the fateweaver and my divination working together to keep me alive. With the fateweaver I chose attack patterns that were easier to dodge, then with my divination I matched my movements to images of safety. I stepped back to avoid a beam, left to dodge a volley of shots, then back again, my movements quick and erratic, forcing the gunner to guess at where to aim next. All of my focus was on surviving five seconds more, then another five after that.

  Then suddenly the helicopter was climbing, the machine gun falling silent. A forest of gantries was coming up, followed by a pair of road bridges. Farther down, Rachel stopped firing and started to advance, struggling to keep her balance on the swaying train.

  Crash was hesitating. I saw him glance at Rachel, then at me; he looked like he was calculating the chances of Rachel shooting him in the back and not liking the answer. The first bridge flashed overhead, and the helicopter vanished from sight. Cinder, I said through the dreamstone, it would be really nice if you could—

  Cinder landed in front of me with a wham, the train roof denting under his weight. He’d jumped from the bridge, fiery wings slowing his fall. He straightened and his eyes locked onto Crash.

  Crash took in the new odds instantly, and through the futures, I saw him make a snap decision. Mercenaries don’t usually fight to the death; for them, the big question is “Are we getting paid enough?” and for Crash, the answer had just become no. He leapt from the train, hitting the ballast beside the tracks and rolling, falling out of sight.

  “You took your time,” I called.

  Cinder didn’t turn around. “Stay out of this.”

  The second bridge flashed by and Rachel appeared from its shadow one carriage down. She saw Cinder and went dead still. She shouted something, her voice whirled away by the wind.

  Cinder held out a hand towards her, palm up.

  Rachel’s face twisted. A disintegration beam shot out, aimed to burn through Cinder and hit me.

  Cinder’s shield flared. Fire met water with a deafening crack, but Cinder didn’t move. He sent a fireball straight back at Rachel. She disappeared in a roar of dark red flame, the smoke blowing away almost instantly to reveal her standing unharmed.

  Again Cinder held out his hand.

  The futures forked, zigzagging. I’d never seen a pat
tern like that, and even with everything that was happening, I couldn’t help but be fascinated. It was as if two different futures were meeting within Rachel’s mind, both trying to overwhelm the other. She swayed with the moving train, eyes flicking from behind the domino mask from Cinder to me.

  Off to our left, the helicopter swept down in a shallow dive to match the train’s speed, and again the machine gun stuttered. Without looking, Cinder held out one arm: the gauntlet on it glowed with power, the gems on the blue scale gleaming, and the bullets sparked off an invisible barrier.

  “Del,” Cinder called.

  Some indecipherable emotion convulsed Rachel’s face. She turned and ran, fleeing down the train at lightning speed. She dropped down the hole she’d opened up into the carriage and was gone.

  Cinder took a step after her, but had to halt as another burst of machine gun fire sparked off his shield. “She’s gating,” I called.

  “Stop her!”

  Metal gantries flashed by overhead. “I try, I might kill her.”

  Cinder swore. “Ten seconds,” I said. I could sense the gate forming, far faster than was safe. It wouldn’t take much to twist the futures, cause a cascade failure . . . assuming I didn’t care what happened to Rachel.

  Cinder didn’t reply. Seconds ticked, and the gate opened, then closed. “She’s gone,” I said.

  Cinder growled. With a flick of his wrist, he threw a fireball at the helicopter. The spell exploded against an invisible countermagic barrier thirty feet from the aircraft.

  Mr. Verus? I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but—

  But there’s another problem, of course there is. Let’s hear it.

  November didn’t use words this time. A three-dimensional diagram flashed into my head, combined with estimated times of arrival and blast radii.

  Cinder threw another fireball at the helicopter; it bloomed against the shield, the helicopter emerging unscathed a second later. A burst of return fire was blocked by Cinder’s shield as well. “Waste of time,” Cinder muttered, and looked at me. “Stop this bloody train.”