by Anthony Ryan
She turned away and injected half-second doses of Black, Green and Red, gritting her teeth against the rush of sensation then vaulting from the trench and sprinting towards the eastern sector. She leapt as she neared the scene of the worst destruction, the trenches littered with the corpses of Contractors and conscripts, those left alive fleeing in panic as flames and carnage raged at their backs. The leap took her high enough to see the havoc wrought by the Blood Cadre in just a few minutes, trenches filled with fire, cannon dismounted and their crews torn apart, the dark-uniformed figures of the empire’s most feared servants busily wreaking yet more destruction as they descended on the few knots of defenders unwise enough to linger.
She saw one in mid-leap just beneath her, flames blossoming beneath him as he unleashed a blast of Red onto a Growler crew. Keen to husband her product, she put two rounds from the Whisper into his back and had the satisfaction of seeing him plummet to the ground. A half-second later her own leap brought her down directly in the path of a trio of Cadre, all clad in insignia-free plain black uniforms. They had been engaged in dismembering a group of conscripts, one tearing the arm from a screaming man whilst his two comrades blasted the others with Black. Their momentary shock at her appearance gave her time to put a Whisper round in two of their foreheads in quick succession. The third dodged as she adjusted her aim, sinking to the ground and scuttling to the right in a crab-like blur. She felt the air around her thicken with heat as he let loose with a surge of Red, but the fire was weak, indicating he was near the end of his ingested product. She leapt again, sailing over his head and slamming down with a hefty release of Black, the force of it enough to crush his spine.
A bullet whisked by her head as she landed, her Green-attuned eyes instantly snapping to the threat. A woman twenty yards away with a revolver, moving with the aid of Green as she leapt, seeking the advantage of height and firing off a rapid salvo. Lizanne whirled away, raising dust in a concealing screen, and replied with a focused blast of Red, the woman twisting and thrashing in the air as her uniform took light. Lizanne sprinted towards her as she fell, writhing in the dust to extinguish the flames. She was clearly a veteran, however, her recovery swift and near fatal as she swept Lizanne from her feet with a concentrated burst of Black, then raised her pistol for a killing shot. Lizanne saw the woman curse as the revolver was jerked from her grip. It hovered in mid air in front of her face for a second then spun around and fired, the woman’s face shattering like glass.
Lizanne tracked the pistol’s flight, watching it descend into the hand of a beefy man some twenty yards away. He wore the garb typical of a stevedore, hardy dun-coloured dungarees and a peaked cap. He caught Lizanne’s gaze, grinned a little and touched a finger to his cap. Behind him she could see a dozen more people in varied garb emerging from the fog of dust and smoke, some with weapons, most not, spreading out as the air around them seemed to shimmer with suppressed power. Carvenport’s Blood-blessed had answered the call.
Lizanne turned, seeing a ragged line of Blood Cadre ahead. For a moment both sides stood regarding each other in silent appraisal, then as if in response to some unspoken command, they all leapt. Lizanne managed to shoot one Corvantine before the two sides collided in an instantaneous release of power. The air itself seemed to have been sundered by the combination of so much Black and Red unleashed at once. Lizanne found herself tumbling through the air, flames licking at the sleeve of her overalls and blood leaking from her nose, seeing a grey haze at the corners of her vision warning of imminent loss of consciousness. She depressed the Spider’s middle button an instant before colliding with the ground, the rush of Green sufficient to suppress most of the pain and prevent serious injury.
She found her feet quickly, the Whisper coming up to dispatch two Corvantines crawling about near by, both evidently nursing broken limbs. She saw the stevedore who had killed the Cadre woman, whirling in a miasma of raised dust as he used Black to swing a dismounted cannon around like a club, swatting a Corvantine out of the air before crushing another into the ground with repeated blows, like a mallet pounding on a splintering peg. A salvo of pistol-shots rang out and the stevedore’s furious pounding ceased abruptly, Lizanne watching him stare unbelieving at the holes in his chest before sinking to the ground.
She could see his killer, a tall hatchet-faced man holding a revolver in each hand. He was older than the other Cadre operatives, eyes narrowed in the determined yet shrewd gaze of the seasoned professional. Lizanne pressed three buttons on the Spider, refreshing her product reserves, then leapt again. The hatchet-faced man was quick to spot the danger, jerking aside as she fired her last two Whisper rounds. He rolled then performed his own Green-assisted leap, pistols blazing. Lizanne twisted in the air, feeling the bullets thrum around her, one plucking at the leg of her overalls but failing to find flesh. She sent a blast of Black at the Cadre agent, throwing his aim wide as he fired again, pistols clicking empty as he drew near. Lizanne twisted again, bringing her leg around in a kick that would have done her instructors proud. She felt it connect hard with the agent’s ribs, feeling the bones give way under the unnatural pressure. She turned to watch him fall as she landed, blood trailing from his mouth, then spouting high in a red fountain as he connected with the earth. Lizanne saw him twitch then lie still.
She reloaded the Whisper, hands moving with accustomed speed as she cast around for another target, finding only corpses and the dazed figures of the surviving Carvenport Blood-blessed wandering the scorched and part-demolished trenches.
“You there,” she said, spying one in a Protectorate uniform, a young man staring at the blackened body of the agent he had killed. He swung towards her, face momentarily pale and uncomprehending with shock, but straightened a little when she identified herself. “Exceptional Initiatives. Find an officer and get some riflemen down here to cover these trenches.”
He nodded and ran off. Through a mixture of jostling and sheer force of personality, Lizanne managed to gather the rest of the survivors into a dense knot around a Growler position, instructing them all to replenish their product as she went about restoring the weapon to working order. It was dented and blackened but fortunately the winding lever and firing mechanism remained undamaged, as did the magazines.
“Uh, miss,” one of the Blood-blessed said, a bespectacled woman of middling years in managerial garb. Lizanne assumed her usual responsibilities consisted of daily trance communications with Home Office. From the way her arm trembled as she pointed at the ground beyond the trenches, the trials of the day were evidently coming close to stripping away her self-control. A long line of Corvantine infantry could be seen advancing through the lingering smoke, their dense ranks indicating that Marshal Morradin still had some tactical lessons to learn.
“Stand ready,” Lizanne said, closing the breech on the Growler.
“Shouldn’t we . . .” another Blood-blessed began, this one a sailor and just as unnerved as the managerial woman. He had probably been recruited from the engine room of a blood-burner and cast into this maelstrom with little understanding of the consequences. He trailed off at Lizanne’s glance, giving a helpless shrug.
“Run?” she finished for him, before training the Growler on the on-coming infantry. “Where to?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, ordering them all to take shelter in the nearest trench and make sure they had gulped down some Black. “Don’t release it until my order,” she said. “We need to hold them.”
She gripped the Growler’s lever and waited until the first rank had closed to within ten yards of the trench, just when their cohesion began to waver as the excitement of seizing an apparently undefended trench took hold. “NOW!” she shouted. She was gratified to see most of the Blood-blessed in the trench respond to the order, though a couple had clearly reached their limit and remained huddled on the duckboards. The others all stood and unleashed their Black as one, the first two ranks of the lead Corvantine battalion com
ing to a sudden and frozen halt as their collective grip took hold.
Lizanne stared at her hand on the lever, wondering why it hadn’t moved. The thought came unbidden, treacherous and deadly: There are so many. It was the same paralysis that had gripped her in the Burgrave’s office; years of experience and training falling away when confronted with a too-awful reality. It was the memory of Tekela’s face that unfroze her, the knowledge of the girl’s most likely fate if Carvenport fell.
She screamed as she turned the handle, a cry of revulsion swallowed by the growl of multiple barrels sending bullet after bullet into the immobile ranks of infantry. They were held so completely they even failed to twitch as the rounds tore through them, like man-shaped meal-sacks, leaking blood instead of grain, faces unable even to register the pain of death.
She exhausted the Growler’s magazine and quickly slotted in a new one, seeing the first signs that the collective hold was starting to falter. The soldiers in the next ranks were trying to force their way past the statue-like corpses of their comrades, some pushing their rifles through the gaps to fire at the Blood-blessed. Lizanne saw the managerial woman take a bullet in the head before tearing her gaze from the slumping corpse and turning the Growler’s handle. She worked the flaming barrels along the line of infantry, sights raised slightly to lash at the roiling jam of men trying to press forward. The Growler emptied in short order, however, and, from the many screams of rage and pain, the Corvantines had suffered greatly from her attentions. Still they sought to press forward, the line of frozen corpses prised apart like an old fence then giving way completely as the Blood-blessed’s reserves of Black ran out.
The Corvantine infantry surged forward in a howling mob, dead and wounded borne along in the tide, covering the distance to the first trench in a few seconds, fury and blood-lust on every face . . .
The first shell left a thin trail of smoke as it slammed down to destroy the leading company of Corvantines, sundered bodies blown away like rags. Another four shells came down in short order, the great mass of infantry breaking apart under the bombardment. Lizanne glanced back, seeing a newly arrived battery of Protectorate artillery on the rise behind her. The gunners scrambled to reload as what was left of the Corvantine attack milled about just short of the trenches. Still it wasn’t over. Dazed or wounded men were being shoved into a semblance of order by officers and sergeants, exhortations rising for a final effort and bugles pealing out anew.
Lizanne slotted a magazine into the Growler, aimed at the most conspicuous officer and turned the lever until the firing mechanism clicked on an empty chamber. The Protectorate artillery resumed firing as she let her hand fall from the lever. The shells were launched with less frequency now the danger had passed. After a five-minute barrage the guns fell silent.
Lizanne didn’t look when the smoke cleared, instead slumping down next to the Growler as the last dregs of product fled her system. The screams and the appalled exclamations of the surviving Blood-blessed told the tale well enough. A chill shudder ran through her, making her clutch herself tight until it passed, resisting the temptation to inject a drop of Green. I earned this pain.
After a moment, when the shaking had faded, she rose and walked away from the Growler, ignoring the proffered hands and expressions of appreciation from Blood-blessed and soldiers. An officer appeared at her side asking for her name. She muttered “Exceptional Initiatives” then walked on, coming to a halt at the body of the hatchet-faced man she had killed, idly pondering the question of who he had been. She knew searching the body would prove fruitless as no Cadre agent would ever carry anything that might identify them. But looking at his face and the lines of experience around his eyes, she couldn’t help but conclude he must have been a senior figure in the Blood Cadre. Pity, she concluded, he might have had something enlightening to say.
She was about to move on as she noticed something else, a faint glimmer of metal on the man’s wrist. Kneeling, she lifted his sleeve, frowning in baffled surprise until realisation hit home with a jolt.
—
“This is not my work,” Jermayah said, his nimble hands turning the Spider over in careful examination. “The materials are far too flimsy. I make devices that last.”
“The design,” Lizanne said, watching his face intently. “It’s identical, wouldn’t you say?”
Jermayah pursed his lips in consideration. “Pretty much. I’ll have to have a word with Madame, farming out my designs to inferior craftsmen. It’s not on.”
“You showed her the prototype?” Lizanne asked.
“Months ago,” he said. “Everything has to cross her desk these days. Been waiting to hear back about the patent, actually.”
“Just her?” Lizanne pressed. “No-one else?”
Jermayah gave her a quizzical look. She had led him to a secluded corner of the trenches to quiz him on the device she had found on the Cadre agent’s wrist. “No-one else,” he said, tone cautious now. “Where’d you get this?”
“From a dead man who had no business wearing it.” She stood, injecting a drop of Green to banish her lingering fatigue and turning towards the city. “There is about to be a change of management in Carvenport,” she told Jermayah. “It may have unfortunate consequences for the girl and the major.”
“Built myself a shelter under the shop years ago,” Jermayah said. “In case something like this ever happened.” He gave a sheepish grin at her expression. “Only as a last resort. They’re welcome to share it.”
“Go there if it looks like the city is about to fall. I’ll find you.” If I live, she added silently, running for the city gate with a determined stride.
—
“Where is she?”
The young Protectorate officer outside Madame’s office quailed a little under Lizanne’s gaze. She had marched past him to kick the office door open, revealing an empty desk. “Her current whereabouts are classified,” the officer began, then fell to abrupt silence as the tip of the Whisper’s barrel pressed into his nose.
“Where?” Lizanne said, summoning enough Red to make the man sweat as she stared hard into his eyes.
“Th-the harbour,” he stammered. “The Corvantine fleet raised a signal requesting a truce. She’s gone to negotiate a cease-fire.”
Lizanne’s gaze swept over the office and she knew with instinctive certainty that if she ransacked it a very important item would be found missing. “Oh, I’m sure she’s gone to negotiate.”
She rushed outside, eyes roving the makeshift camp until she found a horse. She leapt into the saddle and kicked the animal into a gallop. It was a somewhat lumbering beast, probably a cart-horse pressed into military service. However, it carried her through the city fast enough to prevent her exhausting her supply of Green, something she expected to have need of very soon. The streets were mostly empty, those citizens not called to the trenches no doubt huddled in basements and with good reason. Most of the Corvantine shelling seemed to have come down on residential areas, and with far too much accuracy and quantity to have been accidental. Morradin hoping to spread enough terror to provoke rebellion, she decided. Little did he know all he had to do was wait and the place would be handed to him on a platter.
She reined the horse to a halt at the docks, eyes roving the silent and mostly crewless ships before alighting on the great edifice of the mole where three figures could be seen: Madame and two Protectorate guards. Lizanne galloped for the steps where the mole joined the eastern extremity of the docks, leaping clear of the saddle then injecting enough Green to sprint to the top in the space of a few seconds. She could see them clearly now, Madame flanked by two men, covert operatives from the look of them. Beyond the mole the sea was filled with the Corvantine fleet, frigates and cruisers all at anchor with guns raised and angled towards the city. A small motor-launch was making its way towards the mole, a truce pennant fluttering from its mast and a contingent of Corvantine officers
on board. It was a two-moon tide today and the sea was high against the mole, only six feet short of the top, meaning the Corvantines would have a relatively easy time clambering up to receive the city’s surrender.
Lizanne injected nearly all her remaining Red and Black, the burn as it mingled with the Green adding fuel to the unfamiliar mix of emotions raging in her breast. She drew the Whisper, sprinted forward and leapt, a yell of unrestrained fury escaping her as she plummeted down a few yards from Madame, remaining in a predatory crouch as the two guards rounded on her, revolvers levelled. They were both Blood-blessed, and had clearly imbibed almost as much product as she had.
Lizanne ignored them, her gaze fixed entirely on Madame, now regarding her with an incurious glance. “Truelove,” Lizanne said.
The guards both took a step forward, the air beginning to thrum as they summoned their product.
“Enough of that!” Madame ordered sharply, both guards turning to her in surprise. “Lower your weapons,” she ordered. “Miss Lethridge and I have business to discuss.”
She favoured Lizanne with a very slight smile as the guards stood aside. “You look terrible,” she said.
Lizanne rose from her crouch, glancing down at the multiple blood-stains and scorch-marks on her overalls. “I just killed at least a hundred people,” she replied, lowering the Whisper and stepping between the guards to come to Madame’s side. “Of course I look terrible.”
Madame’s face grew sombre and she turned, nodding at the approaching launch. “Fortunately, such extremes will no longer be necessary.”
Lizanne’s eyes went to the canvas bag in Madame’s hand, and the distinctive rectangular bulge of what it contained. “You really think they’ll just sail away and leave us in peace if you give them that?”
Madame shook her head, a thin sigh of exasperation escaping her lips, once again the teacher aggrieved by her pupil’s lack of comprehension. “For all your experience, all your travels, your vision remains so frustratingly narrow. The agreement I am about to negotiate goes far beyond this petty war. We stand on the cusp of something far greater, Lizanne. Something I sincerely hope you will share in.”