Tharson and the other riders hauled their animals to a sudden halt, and the wraith began to pantomime its map at them again, in the air this time. For all that it was clearly capable of reproducing human speech it had already heard, it seemed determined not to actually learn to speak itself, and in this particular moment Isavel found herself resenting the wraith’s stubbornness.
“I thought the damn thing spoke.” Tharson was clearly thinking the same thing, and she found herself smirking at the shared thought. “They made better time than we expected, but we’ll make it first.” He patted the galhak, scratching under the feathers by the base of its skull. “If we ride through the night. Poor beasts will have earned their rest after that. We should trade them out.” He waved dismissively at the wraith. “I wish Smoky could carry us there itself.”
“We’re not calling it Smoky.” Not least because the ot tharsis term he was using was ashindulu , which sounded too childish to her ears for a creature that seemed to fall just barely on this side of monstrous.
Which side was that?
“Then think of a better name.” Tharson called to the others. “We ride through the night. Go!”
The animals surely enjoyed this even less than their riders did, and it was a small mercy they fed the galhak the last of the chara they had brought with them at dusk, before forcing them back on the road almost immediately. Still, the stamina these animals displayed was beyond impressive - Isavel wondered if any horse could be expected to do the same.
Night fell and they were not nearly as close to the Olympus ridge as she had expected, and yet it had grown quite a bit larger. As the details of the land vanished under darkness, one section of the ridge remained visible, and after a time Isavel realized it was illuminated. There were people living there, fires or lights or gods knew what else keeping their homes and streets bright. A proper living city, the likes of which she had not seen since Glass Peaks. She felt a longing for that distant home she had only come to months ago, and hoped now that Red Rise was as impetuously fierce in defending its people as Glass Peaks had been when the ghosts had attacked.
They rode through the night and into morning, and finally seemed to be nearing the city. To Isavel’s surprise, overnight the ridge of Olympus had grown to tower above the plains, as though the rocky maw of the planet was threatening to devour the surface and all its denizens. Its scale was humbling, and she quickly revised her estimation that the mountains of her homeland compared in any way to this. They were hills at best alongside Olympus.
And she saw Red Rise, and when she understood it really had been carved into the face of that massive rise - from a sprawling base at the plains, rising tier by towering tier in a gentle triangle towards a narrower crest at the top of the ridge, all in pale polished stone that seemed faintly violet where the blue dawn met the red stone - she felt in awe at what the ancients had done here on Mars, more so than she ever had in the face of the concrete and glass and metal towers of Earth.
“A beautiful city.” Tharson had pulled the galhak to a brief pause atop the final hill that stood between them and the cliffs. “Sixteen levels, from the plains to the skin of Olympus. Galhak do not gladly climb the stairs - we will go on foot. In any case, these ones deserve no more punishment from us.”
“Where is Crimson?”
He pointed up. “Beyond the edge, further up the mountain, is an ancient -”
The wraith’s wailing interrupted them, and as they turned to stare at it it expanded into an odd circle. And in the middle of that circle, that ring of churning black, a fleet of barges was cresting a distant ridge, blue banners aflutter.
“Gods damn it!”
The martians began to swear loudly as they kicked the poor galhak back into action. She rapped on Tharson’s shoulder.
“Can we make it?”
Tharson pointed ahead and Isavel saw Red Rise’s own fleet, a smaller collection of still equally large and formidable-looking ships. Red banners snapped in the wind as they moved in tight arcs around the base of the city. “If Azure is not a fool, he will array his fleet. Wait for openings. Red Rise may begin to evacuate, if they haven’t already. We can make it.”
Isavel twisted in her east, and noticed that the blue fleet seemed to be headed straight for the city. “What if Azure is a fool?”
He glanced off to the northeast, to the fleet. “Sometimes the gods reward the foolish.”
“Azure is a god, Tharson.”
He huffed. “Perhaps I hope all fools will be rewarded equally today.”
He might simply be getting tangled in his words, but whatever he meant, she could only hold on tight and pull her flapping poncho closer around her arms, hoping the animals were fast enough, or Azure cautious enough. Each leaping galhak bound took them over dense red and purple shrubs and kicked up a flurry of orange dust. The wraith swooped and banked overhead in black streaks, warbling and chirping, imitating the galhak again. They responded in kind, loud and frantic-sounding, and she wondered for a moment if the wraith was urging them forward, warning them of danger they needed to outrun.
They crossed one final stream on the way towards the city, bounding over it with ease, and then they were on a long, flat, final run of maybe a klick or two at most. They would cross it soon enough, and then they would reach the city’s walls.
She peered closer at those walls, hunter’s eyes looking for gates. She found two, both sealed shut. Come to think of it, what good were walls to a vertical city, in a world where wars were fought from flying airships?
The day’s first cannonfire screamed across the air above them, blue destruction slamming into one of the small red-flagged barges and flinging its debris in several directions. They veered to the right to avoid some of the debris, and Isavel saw a few smaller gunshots zipping through the air, their aim wildly off but their numbers and their persistence stringing a web of danger.
She held her breath, and for a moment her hunter’s senses were all. The hunter stood in the middle of the web, lances of energy over time spearing her world and her body, and her eyes found and unwove the tangle. The hunter strode through the field, raising her hand towards the threads that needed to be snipped, the shots that needed to be intercepted - some by counterfire, others by shield.
Then the hunter looked to the warrior, and she was ready.
“Tharson! Go left!”
“What -”
She bloomed a shield along her right forearm. “Trust me!”
He veered left and the others followed, narrowly missing a spatter of gunfire that plinked into the dirt with puffs of rust and red. With her right hand, when the shield wasn’t needed, she snapped out counterfire to block a few key incoming shots, and she saw Hail doing the same. Each rippel against her shield made her worry for her friends, but they were few, and she knew she and Tharson could step - briefly - where they could not.
Few shots flew at the blue from the red fleet, the defenders unexpectedly passive. For all that it was a smaller warfleet, they should be able to put up at least a bit of a fight to win their people time.
Then, as though they had sensed Isavel’s disappointment and decided to worsen it, the red-flagged barges turned and started rising through the air, swinging around across the aerial battlefield towards the city. Towards, she realized, the city’s peak. They were going to completely abandon the ground levels - and the closer they were riding to the city, the more she was beginning to see and hear the people inside it, screaming and shouting and running up wide stairs at the far northeastern edge of the city.
“What are they doing? ”
Tharson shouted angrily. “High ground?” He didn’t sound convinced. That was not a good sign. Azure’s weapons probed at them again, from closer this time, and more accurately for all that the martians lacked gifts. She was about to bring up a shield when the wraith was suddenly between them and their attackers, howling across the wastes and sprouting dozens of writhing black tentacles across its back. Shots meant for them were suddenly
going awry, as the wraith did… something that knocked them off course.
Then a ray of blue fire struck at it, and half the wraith suddenly burst into black dust, and the other hand wheeled away howling. It wasn’t going to stop the incoming fleet.
Closer and closer, the galhak rasping audibly now, they closed in on the nearest of the city gates. It was still barred shut. Looking up at the sixteen tiers of Red Rise, carved into the auburn flesh of the greatest mountain of Earth and Mars, Tharson cried out to nobody at all.
“A beautiful city!”
Chapter 12
They were seconds away when heavy cannons within the city began firing over their heads. They came to a stop just outside the gates, which remained stubbornly fixed, but for all that their galhak were tired the creatures seemed eager to get away from the shots flying all around them. The walls of Red Rise were so high that even a strong jump up Mars’ shallow gravity wouldn’t get her halfway to the top, but Isavel had more than just her legs to help her up.
Making a rude gesture at the gate, Sam swiveled on her galhak to gape at Tharson. “The planet is infested with airships! Why do you even have walls? ”
Tharson shook his head, staring wide-eyed at the incoming blue banners. Isavel knew she couldn’t waste any more time. Letting the dragon’s gift fill her body and spread out into electric wings behind her back -
Tharson tapped her arm, staring at the white wings. “Can you make them red?”
“Red?” She smirked. “Crimson.”
“A bit friendlier.”
She nodded. Red wings today, then. She hopped off the galhak and made for the walls, crouching and leapt into the air, clearing the ground and the wall and flinging up past startled martians in red-woven bronze.
“You!” She pointed indiscriminately at them as she alighted. She couldn’t tell if they were more shocked that she had jumped their wall, had wings, or was an earthling - if indeed they even understood her alien appearance at a glance. “Open the gate! It’s useless anyway.”
One of the nearest martians turned to shout something at his comrades, and they readied guns and started firing across the sky at the attackers. “Who are you? What are you? Why should we open the gate for -”
What would make the man understand their need? “The Red Sword is down there!”
The martian’s eyes widened, and he dashed past Isavel to lean over the side of the wall. Apparently he now spotted what he hadn’t the first time. He spun away from the wall and shouted down into the city. “Open the gates! Let them through!” Then turned on Isavel and grabbed her arm. “That black thing. It followed you here. Explain.”
Isavel stared out at the wraith as the great gate began to lower - which was receding into the ground, she realized, the slowest possible way for it to let them through. Of course. “It’s - it’s magic. It protects us.”
“That is no explanation -”
“Earth magic!”
The martian stared at her, narrowed her eyes, and shook her head. “Help or be gone, demon.”
She was gone, dropping down into the city on the opposite side of the gate. With any luck she could do both, but she couldn’t save a whole city. Not this one. Not against this kind of foe; there were no good vantage points to leap at the barges, and Azure’s fleet was keeping its distance this time. The wraith dove over the wall after her, a hot lance of blue cracking after it, and cooed at her as she landed on the ground. She stared at it as the gate lowered. “What can you do? Can you help us?”
It just made a series of infuriatingly incomprehensible noises, and she looked towards the gate, now almost low enough for the animals could leap over.
“We need help. If you can destroy Azure’s barges, please do.”
The chittering wasn’t reassuring, but as the gate approached a person’s height the wraith suddenly dove over it and was gone, back out onto exposed terrain. Seconds later the party and the galhak scrabbled over the still-lowering gate, and before it had even fully lowered its operators were raising it again. Gunfire intensified above their heads, and Isavel looked up to see the red fleet rising up the city’s tiers towards Olympus. Heavy guns were covering their retreat, and she realized after a moment that by moving the fleet into such a position they were ensuring the approaching enemy was exposed to as many weapons as possible all at once. Hopefully that paid off.
All around, to her dismay, she found the city had not yet fully evacuated. There were fewer people than its size would suggest, but many were still fleeing towards the vast stairs at one end of the lowest tier. It seemed they too would have to run. Their only advantage, dubious as it was, was that they had just about nothing to carry with them. Tharson led their exhausted animals to the shifting crowd and found a pair willing to quickly take the animals as gifts. And with that, the eight of them were on foot.
Isavel shook Tharson by the shoulder as the sounds of gunfire intensified. “Your brother -”
“He lives on the sixth tier. Or used to.” Tharson pointed. “We have to climb.”
The stairs were far, but as she looked around she noticed they weren’t the only way up. Martians on the next tier had thrown rope down the tier’s steep walls, and those without heavy burdens were simply climbing straight up. “Over there - we can climb. The stairs are too far. Hail - you and I should get up first, cover the rest as they come.”
Hail nodded and stepped forward. “The airships are getting closer. I don’t think tree-hopping will help here.”
“No.” She looked up the tiers, and hoped her gut feeling that each was shorter than the one below it was right. As they ran, scrabbling over the martian dwellings towards the nearest ropes, Tanos called out to her. “Isavel! Can’t we take one of the barges?”
She glanced back, and from this angle the red fleet was already starting to appear over the edge of the walls. “If you see one alone that won’t instantly be blasted by a bigger one if we steal it, let me know.”
The thick black rope bounced nervously against the smooth orange-red stonework, and Isavel felt sure, glancing up the sheer wall, that even she might need a boost or two to close that distance. But unlike the others, she wouldn’t need a rope. “Start climbing!” She spread her wings, their electric hum startling Yarger and Zoa away from her for a moment, and slapped Hail on the back. “See you up top.”
She sheathed her fingers in hard light claws and jumped. She sailed far higher than she ever could have hoped to on Earth, but even here she had limits, bouncing against the wall a little more than halfway up. Her claws scarred the stonework as she scrabbled for purchase, and she found it soon enough. Her feet were useless on the sheer surface, though - couldn’t she do something about that?
Dragons had claws on their feet, after all - and exactly how she flexed and created the hard light that came from her gifts was not bound by simple notions of anatomy. A little concentration produced hexagonal spikes like blades from her feet, and she pulled herself up to jam them into the rock near her hands. Then, with another kick, she sent herself all the way up to the top.
And there, next to her on the edge, was herself. Deeper olive skin, rougher waves in her hair; she looked more like her mother than she thought, and spoke with a fluency that prickled her with shame. Estamos tan lejos.
She turned and looked down upon the others, scrabbling up the ropes. Demasiado lejos.
¿Demasiado? Her other self smiled, raising her hands to the flickering battle-sky of Mars and the yellowish-olive heavens beyond. ¿Por qué no lo dices? Es mejor aquí que allá.
Because it wasn’t better here. She bit down on her shame. She knew the words, but they came slowly. Aquí nos morimos. Aquí no hay nada -
Her eyes narrowed. Were her pupils really so deeply brown? Y allá también. Allá no eras nada. Lo sabes. Pero aquí, el mundo es pequeño. Bastante pequeño para cambiarse.
It wasn’t true. Mars may be smaller, sparser, its gods closer to the ground but she -
Pero tienes miedo de perder la fogata. Her t
one was mocking, and there was no better voice to mock her than own. Como tu padre. ¡A la mierda con la pinche fogata, Isavel! Nosotros no tenemos miedo a la oscuridad.
Of course she wasn’t afraid of the dark. She knew her mother had never gone back to Sajuana - had thrown herself into a world she had never seen, and hadn’t looked back. But that wasn’t her, and it wasn’t now. No soy mi madre. Callate.
No, no eres ella. Her other self spread her hands, smiling lightly. Eres yo.
Heavy strikes flung martian masonry away like kicks to a sandcastle. The walls had never been meant to stand up to such a large-scale attack for long. Whatever they had they been built for, it wasn’t this.
“Come on!” She shouted down at them, and extended a hand down the wall, gripping Hail’s hand and hauling her up. “The next one looks shorter!”
Sam came next, then Tanos, and they darted behind the nearest buildings for cover; their guns were ready, but she didn’t want them dying on her account. Shots started plinking against the tier wall itself as Kelena followed, vaulting up with no need for Isavel’s help, and then Zoa and Yarger and finally Tharson all made the top.
“Isavel. Are you all right?” Hail was looking at her, as though she could tell what Isavel was thinking. Feeling. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing.” She shook herself; now was not the time. Down in the lower city, Azurite barges had bumped up against the pock-marked wall and were disgorging soldiers onto the battlements. “What are they doing? Are they trying to actually capture the city?”
Tharson pulled at her shoulder. “Either way, we can’t stay.”
Just before she turned, one of the smaller enemy barges nearing the wall violently exploded, and she saw telltale flashes of smoky black coils underneath. Almost immediately one of the largest barges trained its cannon on the wraith, though, and a flare of blue-white fire blazed the spot with a white scorch that echoed across her retina as she turned to run. The code on her back, dark lines she had never seen, suddenly seemed to itch at the back of her mind.
Fourth Under Sol (Digitesque Book 5) Page 19