by Ari Marmell
“But—”
“Habbershant’s mechaniks will assist with the planning and construction of makeshift fortifications. Hmm . . . Send one or two back out to the Lady Ellena; have them start cataloging working parts, usable scrap metal, the works. Dalton, long gunners on every bit of local high ground. That includes atop the wall, and I want some sentries watching out, not in.”
Wendell and Serena both stared at the sergeant like her teeth were rusting, but Roland—who’d served with her longest—sprouted a grin to match her own.
“Only one good reason we’d be digging and fortifying the barbican,” he explained to the others, chuckling, “rather than moving in and searching the streets.”
Understanding finally dawned; the mechanik’s and the long gunner’s faces lit up like those of newly awakened warjacks.
“Is if,” Serena finished, “we’re merely an advance unit, securing entry for a larger force.”
The smile now shared between all four, the officers turned and began barking new orders to the men and women of Bracewell’s squad.
***
“Sergeant.”
“Corporal.” Benwynne nodded twice, first in greeting, then in dismissal to the trenchers who had escorted Atherton through the makeshift and woefully incomplete fortifications. “Nice job on ferreting out who was behind this.”
The gunmage’s turn, now, to nod.
Night had well and truly fallen, not that anyone could easily tell. Pockets of Bainsmarket, their own included, were so glaringly illuminated that one could, with only a modicum of eyestrain, have sat in the street and perused the front page of a broadsheet. The iron cages atop streetlamps glowed, pockets of daylight formed of gas-fed flame. Too much flame, it seemed. The system of pipes beneath the streets still worked, even after the attacks, but clearly not without faults.
Now she abruptly frowned, dragging the whole of her attention away from the construction of the rubble-made bastion and onto the newly returned corporal. “You’re not the only one who made it back, I hope!”
“No, Sergeant!” This from five voices speaking as one. Benwynne turned to see Gaust’s commando unit gathered some ways behind her, sporting only minor injuries among them, currently raiding the supply packs for something to eat. She’d neither seen them enter the barbican, nor heard a single call of challenge from any sentries.
“Cute, Gaust.”
“I think it just comes naturally to them, Sergeant.”
“Oh, of course. And you’d never order them to do something like that so you could have a little laugh at my expense.”
Atherton clutched a melodramatic hand to his chest. “Of course not!” He managed to keep the insouciant leer from his lips, but it capered about clearly in his eyes. “The laugh is just a secondary benefit.”
Then, when Benwynne continued not being amused, “Mostly testing the defenses, Sergeant. Hartswood should have a report for you shortly.”
“Of course he should.”
“Sergeant,” Atherton said, all business now, “I’m sure you’ll get around to telling me why we’re digging in instead of advancing, but you need to know . . . We spotted more than a little bit of enemy activity while making our way back.”
“We’ve been watching,” she assured him. “They’re staging in those two buildings across the way, and that third one along the tracks.” She indicated them only with a flicker of her gaze, so as not to be seen pointing.
“Not just those,” the corporal insisted. “I don’t know how many you’ve spotted, but at a guess? From this angle, with these lines of sight, you’ve got eyes on maybe a third of them.”
“. . . Oh.”
“Including a few mortar and small cannon teams. These little walls you’ve got Habbershant designing won’t hold up long.”
“Hopefully they won’t have to. Corporal, when did you learn to send messages like that? And if you can reach me that accurately from half a district away, why not the enemy?”
The gunmage looked briefly at his boots. “Been working on that for a while, Sergeant. Didn’t want to mention it until I knew it’d work. Um . . . And I can only do it because I know you, and scored the final glyphs into the runebullets in your presence. You, Habbershant, a few of the others. Won’t work for anyone else.”
“In other words,” Benwynne said, face and voice equally flinty, “you literally have a collection of bullets with my name on them?”
“Uh . . . I wouldn’t put it quite like—”
“Gaust, go find Cadmoore or Dalton to fill you in. I need to get things rolling.”
“Yes, Sergeant. Hey, by the way, where are the—?”
“Now.”
A perfunctory salute, a swirl of navy-blue coat, and the gunmage was gone.
Benwynne marched to the forefront of the position, peering over the improvised rampart. Her fingers twitched, itching for the spyglass, but she resisted. If the enemy caught her studying them before her own people were ready . . .
Trenchers and mechaniks scurried around her, offering reports and receiving new orders. Finally, while Benwynne wasn’t entirely satisfied that all was in order, she figured she couldn’t afford to wait any longer. “Master Sergeant!”
Wendell appeared, again carrying his bizarre mechanical box-on-a-tripod. Unlike its prior appearance on the beach, this time it boasted an additional tube of flimsy rubber, ending in a brass funnel.
“You won’t be near as loud as the signal whistles,” he reminded her, “so you’ll still want to shout.”
“I think shouting is something I can manage.”
The mechanik coughed once, camouflaging a chuckle. Benwynne flashed a fleeting smirk in return, then raised the funnel to her lips.
“Asheth Magnus!” Her words boomed from the contraption, practically cannonballs in themselves, aimed at a target she couldn’t yet distinguish. “You are wanted on multiple charges of high treason. We know you’re here. Surrender yourself now, and nobody else need die here today!”
A moment, a moment more . . . And then, on a third-floor balcony halfway along the visible stretch of railroad track, a figure appeared. Now Benwynne did snap the spyglass open, determined to confirm what she already knew.
Yes. Broad-shouldered and worn of visage, as though he’d staved off the aging of his body by absorbing it all into his face; clad in makeshift warcaster armor, belching smoke from a pair of small stacks; left hand of flesh clutching an enormous pistol, right hand of iron clenched into a monstrous fist . . . She’d have recognized him by sight even had she not already known his name.
When the traitor called back, he used no artificial augmentation. His voice, which had once driven whole armies, required no such assistance.
“And to whom am I expected to surrender myself, precisely?” Each word was concise, distinct, and carried the weight of an incoming shell.
“Sergeant Benwynne Bracewell,” she answered via the device. “31st Vanguard Company, 7th Division, Second Cygnaran Army.”
“I see.” Magnus shifted across the balcony, and Benwynne had to acknowledge that he knew what he was doing. At no point was he farther than a single dive from the doorway, and the cover of the edifice’s heavy stone walls. “Tell me something, Sergeant Bracewell, if you would . . . How did you respond so swiftly?”
“He wasn’t expecting a military response?” Benwynne whispered incredulously.
“Which means,” Wendell said softly, “that he’s got forces holding the Point Bourne line and the road to Stonebridge Castle.”
Benwynne nodded, but her reply was directed once more to the enemy, rather than the man at her side. “Worried, Magnus?”
“Not terribly.” They could see the shrug even from so far away. “My scouts tell me the plains are still clear. I don’t know when you’re expecting reinforcements to arrive, but I have every confidence I can wipe out your entire position long before they do.”
“You realize he’s stalling,” Wendell continued.
The sergeant lowered th
e tube and placed a palm over the gap. “Of course I know that! He’s moving people into position for a sudden, overwhelming strike. It’s the optimal strategy.”
“So shouldn’t we be trying to make it suboptimal, then? Soon-ish?”
“Maybe you can,” Benwynne challenged, speaking once more through the funnel, “but not easily. You sure you’ll have enough people left afterward to do the job?”
“I think I can manage, thank you. But,” the traitor continued, suddenly thoughtful, “I’m not an unreasonable man. Withdraw your squad from Bainsmarket, right now, and I’ll permit you to leave unmolested.”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Benwynne replied. Then, with a sneer that she was certain Magnus could spot from the balcony, “But then, I suppose I ought not be surprised that you’ve utterly forgotten what it means to be Cygnaran.”
It was impossible, of course, but she would have sworn she’d heard the traitor’s teeth grinding even from here.
And then, without warning, he laughed. Long, loud, as though he’d well and truly lost control, Asheth Magnus laughed.
“You’re not an advance force at all, are you, Sergeant?” he asked once he’d gotten himself under control.
Benwynne never did figure out what had given them away. Some tiny detail she’d overlooked in the way they’d fortified their position? Some idiosyncrasy involved in the fielding of larger divisions which, commanding only a single squad, she’d never learned? Or perhaps it was something far less conscious, an instinct that Magnus had honed to a bleeding edge.
Still, their deception had done its work. It had drawn him out, with the bulk of his forces.
So Benwynne simply smiled even wider. “Took you long enough.”
“I don’t know what you thought to accomplish,” Magnus snarled, all good humor gone so swiftly it might well have been drained by a Cryxian soulhunter, “but it’s over. Ready!”
Mercenaries in battered gear rose from behind door stoops, assembled in windows, flooded onto the streets. Mortar crews gathered behind the growing ranks, snapping weapons together with professional haste. Benwynne heard the men and women around her tensing, fingers edging toward triggers and hilts.
“Steady . . .” she ordered.
And then, as Magnus drew breath for the attack order, Benwynne’s own shout, unaugmented by Wendell’s device, rang over the heads of the gathered soldiers.
“Deploy!”
She only wished she could clearly see the traitor’s face when the first of the warjacks appeared from concealment behind the curtain wall, striding through the railroad tunnel to appear beside the “outgunned” Cygnaran force. It was the one advantage she knew he did not—could not—have: His infiltration had relied on stealth and surprise, and that meant no heavy machinery.
’Jacks included.
Wolfhound stepped from the barbican, shuffled right to leave room for the others, and discharged the long cannon thrice in rapid succession. Soldiers flinched as shards and powdered stone erupted from the walls, and the entire balcony on which Magnus stood abruptly began to sag, its main supports sliced clean through by the hardened rounds.
“Gods damn it, Wolfhound!” Benwynne actually felt an almost overwhelming (if also utterly useless) urge to give the warjack a good smack. It had been told to appear at her command, but it was supposed to await for the word to actually engage.
The Hunter’s joints weren’t equipped to shrug, but it somehow managed to convey the impression all the same.
All right, Magnus had made that building his command post; it probably didn’t have any civilians left inside . . .
There was, of course, no longer any need to give the order to engage. Rifle and mortar rounds streaked from the nooks and crannies of multiple structures, pounding the squad’s ragged defenses. The soldiers returned fire, but chain guns chewed mostly stone and the long gunners managed to pick off only a few sporadic targets. The drooping balcony disappeared entirely behind clouds of smoke and dust. Sparking azure bolts heralded Atherton’s own contributions, and where his runebullets struck, shelter collapsed and mercenaries died—but a lone gunmage, however effective, was unlikely to turn the tide of the whole battle.
The two remaining ’jacks, though, were more than willing to pick up the slack.
As Wolfhound sought a target for its next penetrating round, Shepherd and Bulldog stormed ahead, circling around either side of the bulwark. With a coordination that came partly from Benwynne’s shouted orders and partly their own experience, the massive machines fired in staggered patterns. Bulldog’s twin cannon barked until the magazine was half-empty, first pockmarking and then finally obliterating the face of a nearby blacksmith’s, as well as a sizable contingent of mercenaries sheltered within.
The survivors scurried from the crumbling structure directly into the path of Shepherd’s and the trenchers’ chain guns.
The second half of the magazine emptied as swiftly, slamming already battered stone, and the rest of Magnus’s command position shattered like a glass anvil. Benwynne wondered briefly if it was too much to hope that the traitor was finally dead and buried—but she damn well knew better than believe it until she had the body at her feet.
Now out of shells, the warjack was reduced to using its massive mallet until the mechaniks could get near enough to reload. And while Shepherd’s own weapon still spat and chortled, it took time for even so thick a storm of bullets to grind through solid stone. From within a third building, mortars coughed, over and over, and Benwynne winced as a chain gun crew vanished in dust and flame.
She heard the snap-clang of Wolfhound’s breach. “Take out that mortar nest!” she shouted, though she needn’t have bothered. The ’jack was already raising the cannon again, calculating the proper angle . . .
And Magnus the Traitor proved that either he still lived, or that he’d planned contingencies even against the unexpected arrival of warjacks—and also that, living or dead, he’d instilled such dread in his soldiers that near-certain suicide failed to dissuade them.
From doorway and alleyway, shadow and sewer, men charged the three warjacks. At the same moments, field guns opened up from various windows, forcing the Cygnaran defenders to duck and cover, leaving only a few in position to fire on the incoming enemy.
Benwynne raised her head over the wall and nearly choked on the ambient dust. Every mercenary racing for her ’jacks bore an armful of metal and fuses. She’d no way of telling how potent those bombs might be, but if they’d been built to take down government and military installations in Magnus’s reign of terror, they had to be powerful indeed.
“Don’t let them near you!”
The two more distant warjacks reacted instantly. Shepherd dropped into a crouch and sprayed bullets in almost all directions, flipping its shield horizontal in its other hand for use as a makeshift blade. Bulldog began smashing anything that drew too close, not only with its hammer but the barrels of its spent cannon.
But Wolfhound . . . Wolfhound continued to aim, adjusting the angle of its weapon a degree this way, a degree that . . .
The long cannon spat twice, and the mortar team ceased firing—or doing much of anything else. But that, apparently, hadn’t been the ’jack’s only calculation.
One of the enormous shell casings sprang from the weapon’s breach, tumbled end over end, and landed with perfect aim on the forehead of an incoming bomber. Bruised and burned, the man recoiled, and the warjack simply swept him aside with the long gun’s barrel.
Just as Wolfhound had seemed to shrug earlier, so Benwynne could have sworn she felt something vaguely akin to a smug chortle from the willful machine. Hardly even looking, it spun its axe and turned the rest of the charging enemy into oozing debris.
But while the Hunter readily dispatched the threat, and Shepherd’s combination of automatic fire and shield had accomplished the same, Bulldog proved less fortunate. Bodies fell apart beneath the mallet, bones cracked with the impact of the cannon, but one of the more lightfooted
mercenaries had avoided both. The charge latched against the back of the warjack’s thigh with a metallic ring that Benwynne somehow heard over the gunfire and mayhem.
Bulldog dropped its hammer and reached awkwardly back with a grasping hand . . . The sergeant opened her mouth to shout some order or other . . .
And then all she could do was look away, eyes squeezed tight, as the night—already artificially brightened—dissipated beneath the dawning of a false sun.
From here, it looked as though one of the gods had stepped through Bainsmarket, leaving a careless imprint of devastation on his way to some other appointment.
From the southeast corner of the city garrison, a watchtower—one of several—stretched high, crenellations spread, a granite flower blossoming skyward. Slumped against the stone of the merlon between two of those stubby, rocky fingers, with barely enough strength left to keep pipe between teeth, Wendell Habbershant peered over the wreckage without really absorbing much of it. What had been a temple to Morrow was now a jagged blot of rubble on the city’s face; and buried beneath it, the cemetery in which so many of Bainsmarket’s soldiers were interred. The twice-damned bloody traitor had certainly known how to cause the defenders the worst distraction, and the worst pain.
Steamjacks, bulkier and more squared than their combat-ready counterparts, clomped this way and that, spewing smoke, hauling enormous loads of rubble. Men and women—mostly citizens, but quite a few troops from neighboring installations and a number of Benwynne’s people as well—scurried throughout the wreckage, digging, hefting, seeking. No real hope of any further survivors, not five days in, but the cleanup and the search for corpses would continue for some while. Would continue here and in roughly a dozen spots just like it, gaping wounds in Bainsmarket’s fair flesh. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been—the fifth squad’s intervention had forestalled the worst of the traitor’s operation, so recovery and return to normal would be a matter of days, rather than weeks or months—but it was bad enough, for all that.
Habbershant saw none of it. The gusts swept through the crenellations, cut through his coat and the extra warmth of his beard, but he did not feel them. The sun blinked in and out, almost rhythmically, through an ever-shifting drapery of cloud, but he never noticed.