by Cory Herndon
“Are you all right?” Feather asked. “You appear pale and perhaps faint.”
“I’m fine,” Kos said uneasily. “But I think I’ll fasten the safety harness.”
“And close your eyes?”
“And close my eyes. Just get us there, Feather.”
“You should really see this view, Kos,” Borca’s ghost offered from somewhere behind him as the yacht lurched and dipped under the angel’s less-than-delicate touch. “It makes you appreciate being dead.”
“Shut up, Borca.”
“I shall accelerate. I think the stress is getting to you, Lieutenant.”
“No, don’t—”
“Wow! Kos, you have to see this!”
“Shut up, Borca.”
Kos’s stomach and several other organs collided violently with each other as the nose of the zeppelid dipped, and it occurred to him that while he appreciated the angel’s concern, her attention on the view ahead would be appreciated a bit more.
“Clothesline. My apologies.”
“Kos,” Borca shouted, spinning his phantasmal form in midair so that his translucent face hung upside down right next to Kos’s own. “Incoming!”
* * * * *
“Biracazir, no! He’s not food!” Fonn said, moving between the goldenhide wolf and the unconscious Pivlic. The wolf stared at her and sat, tongue hanging out, then looked off to the cockpit as if to say he’d never been so insulted. But Fonn could smell the wolf’s hunger and felt an empty pit in her own stomach.
“I know a half-demon that might argue that point,” Jarad said, “not to mention a city full of zombies.” He moved closer to Fonn and settled into a stable crouch. “Why didn’t you say anything about the loxodon’s survival?”
“I found out when you did,” Fonn said. But that wasn’t really true, was it? She’d heard that voice. She’d simply chosen to ignore it. Fonn cursed her shortsightedness and lack of faith. It had been a constant problem in her professional and religious lives, which were more or less the same thing. She could believe in the goodness of individuals like Bayul, even trust an enemy like Jarad if logic dictated the sense of it, but blind faith was difficult for one who knew the pain of losing not one but both parents.
She wondered if she would have the chance to talk to Kos about her father before they all joined Myczil Zunich as ghosts.
The zeppelid lurched with another half roll, a drop, then a steep, faster plummet that lifted everything in the cabin—furniture, chests, imp, wolf, Devkarin, and ledev—briefly into the air before gravity and an equally sudden ascent returned them to the deck. Fonn and Biracazir landed on their feet in two- and four-legged crouches, respectively, while Pivlic’s unconscious body flopped over against a skewed sofa that now stuck out from the wall diagonally, and Jarad clung to the zeppelid’s flank like a spider. The chests slammed back together, many toppled over, and one burst open.
“What was that?” Jarad called to the cockpit.
“The quietmen are pursuing the zeppelid,” Feather replied. “I am taking evasive action.”
A white flash shot past the open porthole, a quietman flying so fast he whistled in the night. Another went by, then another. The cabin shook with a series of sudden thudding impacts—more pursuers hurling themselves at the zepp. Despite everything that had happened, Fonn still fought an instinct to turn herself over to them. It was ingrained in her very being. She forced that indoctrination to the back of her mind. The quietmen were her enemies now.
The contents of the broken case scattered across the cabin floor as the angel swung to the left around a corroded bronze spire. Fonn’s jaw dropped.
“Are those …” she began.
“I think they are,” Jarad said. “Pivlic, you sneaky bastard.”
A half-dozen Izzet-designed bam-sticks lay on the floor like bones thrown by a mad fortune-teller. The extract bulbs affixed to the stocks were all full and glowing orange. The weapons and another series of thuds against the stern of the zepp gave Fonn a dangerous idea, and she saw in his eyes Jarad was thinking the same thing. He looked up at the cabin roof.
“That look like a hatch?” he asked.
“I think it is,” Fonn said. “How’s your balance? No offense, but you just took quite a beating.”
“My balance is fine,” Jarad said.
“You realize we’re going to fall to our deaths.” Fonn said.
“Nonsense. You’ve the Selesnya Conclave to protect you.” Jarad replied.
“Just open the hatch,” Fonn said. “There’s only one Selesnyan I’m worried about at the moment. I don’t know what in the name of the holy mother is wrong with the rest of them.”
* * * * *
“Kos, you remember the quietmen I mentioned?” Borca asked. “Well, you might want to check the cabin. I think you might be short two passengers.”
“What?” Kos whispered. “How did they get inside?”
“They didn’t,” the ghost said. “The two passengers went topside.”
“Topside?”
“Are these directions?” Feather asked, confused.
“No,” Kos said. “Just thinking out loud. It helps to, you know, think things through if I sort of pretend Borca is still there.”
“Understood,” the angel said.
“Oh my,” the ghost said as he popped his face through the cockpit roof. “You’re never going to believe what those two found. I’d tell Feather to hold her as steady as she can.”
* * * * *
The goblin bam-stick was a weapon known for its range, its power, its versatility, and most of all its expense. The extract bulbs fed energy into a faceted crystalline chamber, where the energy was focused, refocused, and ultimately condensed into a fireball the size of a marble with the concentrated destructive power of a goblin bomb. The tiny ball was launched through a wand filament not unlike the one at the center of a wojek pendrek.
Bam-stick shots were not, Fonn soon learned, easy to aim. It didn’t help that the weapon had serious kick, her targets zoomed to and fro to avoid her shots, and the zepp she stood on was subject to Feather’s dubious piloting skills. It helped even less that every fiber of her soul told her that trying to kill a quietman was reprehensible. But the quietmen had attacked them, and they had destroyed Pivlichino’s. Instead of abandoning her faith entirely, Fonn convinced herself that these flying pursuers were some offshoots of the many quietmen that served the Conclave in Vitu Ghazi. The image of the quietmen killing with abandon at the restaurant burned in her brain, and she focused on Bayul, waiting at the Leaguehall. These things were trying to keep her from reaching him. It was the only way she could bring herself to shoot to kill.
Unfortunately, shooting to hit had so far eluded her, but Fonn considered it victory enough that she was even atop the speeding zeppelid at this point.
There was a flash of golden light, and a tiny piece of pure incineration lanced through the chests of three bloodstained quietmen who had almost seemed to line up for Jarad’s shot. They jarred the zeppelid beneath them when their corpses struck the lizard’s tailfin.
“You have to watch their patterns,” he shouted over the wailing wind. “They’re not trying very hard to be original.”
“Right,” she shouted back. She nodded to the smoking bam-stick in his hand. “Any idea how many shots these things hold?”
“Not many,” Jarad shouted back. He jerked a thumb at the pair of bam-sticks slung across his back. “That’s why we brought the extras.”
The quietmen swarmed behind them. There were only fifteen of them now, in five squads of three, but just one would be more than enough to tear Fonn and Jarad limb from limb. Fonn drew a bead on one trio as the white-robed figures swooped around the lizard’s tail fin. Fonn jammed one foot against the zepp’s flank and the other against the open hatch, asked Mat’selesnya for forgiveness, and took a second shot.
Forgiveness, it seemed, was unnecessary. The flaming projectile missed all three quietmen but struck the starboard speed-pod.
The bulbous sphere shattered in a dazzling explosion that did what her shot could not and engulfed the advancing pack in flames as the zeppelid lurched. The angelic pilot struggled to compensate for the loss of the pod. Jarad tumbled from the lizard’s spine and collided with Fonn, which triggered a third shot from Fonn’s weapon that flew harmlessly into the sky before the weapon slipped from her grasp and plummeted over the side. They rolled against the open hatch in a tangle of arms and legs and would have gone over the side if Jarad hadn’t caught the lip of the round door with one hand. Fonn managed to grab the Devkarin’s leg but groaned when she felt momentum pull the bam-sticks from her shoulder. She didn’t have to turn and watch to know they were gone.
“Hope anyone on the street down there is looking up,” she said. The zeppelid rolled to one side, and Fonn felt her grip slipping. She was able to hook one hand over Jarad’s toe in time to pull her legs up and avoid a protruding balcony that appeared in her path.
“Come on, ledev,” Jarad said as he hauled her back atop the cabin with one arm. His other held a bam-stick, and as soon as Fonn was safe he triggered a one-handed shot that caught the closest quietman in the side of the head.
Feather regained control, but the lost pod had cost them half their speed. As their progress inevitably slowed, the eleven remaining quietmen surrounded the flying lizard. They didn’t change their tactics, however.
Jarad checked the extract bulb on his bam-stick, saw it was empty, and tossed it overboard. He pulled their two remaining weapons from his back and handed one to Fonn. She dropped to one knee in an effort to better maintain her balance and fired into a trio with blood on their robes. One down. Jarad’s shot missed.
Again Fonn sighted down her bam-stick at the pair of quietmen that had eluded her shot and fired. Her aim was steadied by anger—the pair had blood on their hands—and she caught them both with her blast. Well, she thought, at least we pulled them out of the restaurant. If anyone in Pivlichino’s survives, they may be able to warn the ’jeks.
In less than a minute, they were down to one half-charged bam-stick, and still eight of the silent, white shapes followed the crippled zeppelid. She took aim at the next trio of pursuers, but Jarad held up his hand. “Stop. We might need those last few shots. I don’t intend to be captured by the Selesnya Conclave.”
“They could tear us apart. Why are they hanging back?” Fonn shouted.
“It’s obvious,” Jarad said. “We’re being herded.” He looked at his smoldering bam-stick and its empty ammunition bulb. “We’re not doing any good up here. We should get back inside before you—”
A quietman dropped from the pack to clip Jarad in the jaw with a boot, knocking him back against the flank of the zeppelid. Jarad bounced off of the thick, rubbery hide and spun in midair, swinging the bam-stick like a club. The stock slammed into the figure’s back with a sickening snap that broke the weapon and the attacker’s spine in one blow. The quietman doubled over the shattered bam-stick, and its broken form bounced off a steering fin on its way down to the streets.
“Before we both get killed,” Jarad said.
“It was a good idea,” Fonn said, ducking another attacker who didn’t seem to be trying too hard. “And if they are herding us there, we have to tell the others.”
“Tell the others what?” Kos shouted. His bald head appeared behind the hatch door. “What are you doing, our speed is—oh.”
“They crippled us,” Jarad said, shooting a sidelong glance at Fonn. “They could finish us and haven’t.”
“We’ll deal with that when we get to the ’hall,” Kos bellowed. “Get back in here if you can. You’re not doing any good up here, and Fonn needs to keep herself in one piece. The saint doesn’t want to talk to us. He wants her. If these things can tear apart—what are they doing?”
Fonn followed Kos’s gaze. The seven remaining quietmen slowly let themselves fall behind.
“We must be getting close,” Jarad shouted. “They’re finished with us.”
“No,” Kos said, pointing down at something Fonn couldn’t see below the zeppelid. “I think they were just clearing the way for them.”
“Uh oh,” Fonn said as a pair of beetles—each one the size of her wolf and bristling with black spikes—floated over the horizon of the zeppelid’s broad, flat body. Their giant mandibles, set beneath tiny pale eyes, clacked in time with their buzzing wings, and each one carried a female Devkarin in full hunting armor brandishing a wicked-looking black and silver lance.
Jarad stood and faced them. “Dainya,” he called to the one on the right, “what is happening? Has Savra lost her mind?”
“Huntmaster,” the red-headed huntress shouted back, “you have been found guilty of betraying the Golgari and the holy matka.” She shifted her grip on the lance and nodded to her wingmate. “I hope you will have a clean death, Jarad. You would make a troublesome zombie.”
“I haven’t even begun to be troublesome,” Jarad snarled.
Fonn raised the last bam-stick, aimed, and reconsidered. She wasn’t a very good shot. Hand-to-hand and mounted combat were more a ledev’s style. She slapped the weapon into Jarad’s open hand.
“Will this help?” she said.
“Thanks,” Jarad said, and without giving the huntresses a chance to react he raised it and fired an incinerator round into the chitinous head of the wingmate’s insectoid mount. The tiny ball of fire burned though its exoskeleton and split its primitive brain before exiting through its abdomen, pulling guts along with it. The huntress screamed as she tumbled from the sky, and Dainya’s eyes widened in shock. Jarad raised the weapon and pointed it at Dainya’s face.
“Return to your mistress,” Jarad said. “Tell her I am a traitor. Tell her I have turned against her. Tell her whatever you wish. But do it now or the next one goes through you.”
“This is not over,” Dainya said. “The matka will hear of this.” She wheeled her mount and retreated through the swarm of quietmen, who veered off to follow her back toward the center and the Unity Tree.
“Friend of yours?” Kos shouted.
“Once,” Jarad said. “I do not understand why the quietmen are following them.”
“That could explain their behavior,” Fonn said. “Elves are naturally attuned to the song of the Selesnya Conclave. If your matka found a way to control them, even a small group of them, it could explain this violence. I’ve really got to talk to Bayul.” Her heart skipped a beat when she spoke the Living Saint’s name. She should have known the old loxodon would pull through.
“Hopefully, your charge will be able to tell us what this is all about,” Kos agreed and braced himself against the hatch as Feather rolled the zepp to the starboard side. “Now get back in here.”
Fonn spared one last lingering look at the swarm of insanity disappearing among the towers behind them, said a prayer to the holy mother who didn’t seem to be listening, and pulled the hatch shut.
Theft of guild property is prohibited.
—City Ordinances of Ravnica
27 ZUUN 9999 Z.C., NEAR MIDNIGHT
A few harrowing minutes later the zeppelid rounded the east wing of the wojek barracks. Kos spotted the familiar spires of the Tenth immediately and craned his neck to see out the rear window of the cockpit. The night sky behind them had emptied entirely of pursuers, but he could still see the distant cloud of quietmen heading back toward the center.
The enormous bronze icon of the wojeks, identical in almost every way except size to the badge Kos carried in his pocket, reflected golden glowposts that probed the night sky. The Tenth Leaguehall’s torches, signal braziers, and watch fires cast long shadows that made the structure look sinister from this angle, and considering what they’d fled, he wondered if maybe the assessment was a little close to home. In a world where the Selesnya Conclave’s servants had transformed into an army of killers, anything was possible.
He turned back to the cabin, where the Devkarin and the ledev were trying without luck to pry open ano
ther of the metal cases. Pivlic was still unconscious on the passenger sofa.
“We’re heading down now,” Kos shouted back, “I—oof—think.”
The small zeppelid swung around into a slow, lazy turn to the right that made the clustered towers of Ravnica spin outside the cockpit. Below them, Kos spotted the landing platform, which was curiously devoid of skyjeks and rocs, though dozens of guards lined the rooftop, many with bows drawn. On any given day, there should have been a half-dozen mounted riders changing mounts, returning from patrol, or setting out for the evening’s aerial rounds.
“Where is everyone?” Borca’s ghost asked, and Kos shrugged.
With four heavy thumps, their transport settled down to the landing platform on its short, stumpy legs. The yacht hummed with a subsonic rumble as the creature deflated internal gas bladders and Feather flipped the red steering lever back into place.
“We’re here,” Feather announced. Kos flung his safety harness open and got to his feet. Then the ’jek wobbled back to the main cabin, the angel on his heels. He nodded at the imp.
“Is he all right?” Kos asked.
“Seems to be,” Fonn said. With perfect timing only an imp could manage, Pivlic chose that very moment to wake up.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were attach—aaaaaaaaagh!”
With better-than-perfect timing, the imp saw himself looking up at a wolf’s head that could swallow him whole. He fainted.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” Fonn said.
“Leave him,” Kos said. “Even if the quietmen come back, this place is guarded. I see Phaskin’s coming to meet us, let’s do Pivlic a favor and leave him out of it. I don’t even want to know what the Patriarchs are going to do to him for what’s happened so far. And Feather really bruised up this thing’s nose. You know, Feather, you of all people should know that there’s a traffic pattern going on out there.”