by Ari Marmell
“This is slow!” Dignity—Garland, as Drew knew her—hissed back. “You told me you could keep up!”
“I can keep up,” he protested, all wounded dignity. Well, all wounded dignity and heaving, panting breaths. “It’s just . . . this stuff you asked me to bring . . . It’s awfully volatile . . .”
“Either keep up or hand over the satchel.”
The alchemist clutched the heavy bag more tightly to his chest, scowled, and redoubled his efforts.
Passing into New Town required no effort at all; Dignity wasn’t sure the two sleepy sentinels at the gate even noticed their passage. The authorities weren’t really concerned with keeping people out of New Town; they just didn’t want “undesirables” crossing freely in the other direction.
The difference between the districts wasn’t so much “night and day” as “spring and autumn.” While not that much smaller than those in Old Town, the various structures were in markedly poorer repair. Flaking whitewash, cracked brick, decaying wood, shifting foundations, holed roofs, boarded windows—a good-quality home or business in New Town was one that suffered only one or two such problems, rather than the whole collection. Where the streets were cobbled, the pavers were dirty and chipped, pounded deep into the dirt. In other spots, the roads weren’t cobbled at all, either because they never had been, or because the pavers had long since been stolen for use elsewhere. Only every fourth or fifth corner boasted a lamppost; only every fourth or fifth lamppost still worked. At least most of those were still connected to the gas lines, though a few had been replaced with simple oil- or even wood-burning vessels.
It all stank rather less than one might have expected—the sewer systems of Leryn were among Western Immoren’s best, and keeping the network flowing meant maintaining the entire system, including those portions servicing New Town—but otherwise, the district was indeed the epitome of the worst most major cities had to offer.
It also included, just a few blocks from the dividing wall, the hidden lair of the Section Three infiltrators.
Finding them had taken all the skill Dignity possessed—and yet, in the end, had also proven far more straightforward that she would ever have anticipated. As she’d known they would, Vorona and her people fled the scene dressed as Crucible Guard, losing themselves in the chaos while soldiers, fire brigade, and a vast crowd of morbid spectators thronged the avenues outside the Surros estate.
Swathed in the coat and hat she’d snagged from the dead servants, and utilizing every surveillance technique the CRS taught, Dignity had pursued. She ducked into doorways; attached herself to larger groups of pedestrians; changed clothes, ditching the coat for a chilly block or two here, the hat for a few streets there; traveled a short distance on the rooftops, when the buildings huddled close enough to make that possible.
They’d led her, first, to the back of a small pottery and ceramics shop—the sort that produced gaudy, decorative gewgaws of substantial cost and no genuine utility whatsoever. The rear door waited for them, unlocked; Dignity could only imagine that the owner had either been bribed or murdered—or possibly both.
The store was clearly a rally point, not an actual headquarters, and the Khadorans spent only a few minutes inside. Now dressed in inconspicuous civilian clothes, they slipped out, alone or in pairs, over the span of half an hour. Once Dignity was certain that Vorona herself was not waiting to go last—she was, in fact, half of the second pair to depart—she lurked atop a nearby roof until the final operative, by her count, took to the street.
His outfit allowed him to blend with the rest of the evening crowd, and he’d been at least as watchful now as before he ditched his disguise, but though she came awfully near discovery a time or two, Dignity managed to follow. It was then that she’d discovered Vorona’s lair was a house in New Town—a house whose proper owners were almost certainly dead and either stashed in the cellar or buried in the yard. Throughout the evening and through the night she’d watched, crouched beside the crumbling chimney of an even more dilapidated domicile across the way. A couple of times, one or two of her quarry departed, but always returned a few moments later. Not another rallying point, then, or temporary shelter. This was the real deal.
Half an hour before dawn, she’d bolted for Thunderhead, determined to see Drew the moment the gate guards would admit her—and that, after a brief and rather volatile discussion, had led them both back here, the alchemist weighted down with a few surprises he was not happy carrying.
He didn’t speak again until they huddled behind the same house on which Dignity had earlier perched. The streets were beginning to flow, now; a few more minutes, and they’d qualify as crowded. Too crowded for what Dignity had in mind.
“Garland . . . Are you sure about this?”
“You wanted to help undo some of the damage, Drew. This is how.”
“It’s just . . . People could get hurt.”
“That’s rather the point, actually.”
“The wrong people,” he said with a glare.
“Not if you got the ratios right. Besides, sometimes there’s no help for it.”
Still the alchemist looked unsure, twisting the satchel around in circles. At least, he did so until Dignity lunged forward, faster than a goosed serpent, and snatched it from his grip.
“Hey! I—”
“Go home, Drew.”
“No . . . No, I should see this—”
“You’re a well-known alchemist. I suggest you not be anywhere near the spot where the authorities start to gather.”
“I—”
“Go.”
Constantly looking back over his shoulder—Dignity was absolutely stunned he didn’t run into something—he went.
Around her, the house’s shadow slowly leaned beneath a swiftly brightening sky.
This is taking too long . . .
With dangerous haste, she unpacked the three jars from the satchel. The lids opened with a trio of metallic clacks. Pour third jar into the first, shake very carefully to mix; pour combined powders into the second jar, shake even more carefully . . .
The result was a blotchy, rust-hued powder with various flecks of sickly yellow. A small length of fabric, ripped from the hem of her skirt and closed in the jar’s lid, made for a nicely decorative fuse; the whole affair, now perhaps the most dangerous jar in Leryn, she slipped back into the satchel.
More torn cloth, this time wrapped around her nose and mouth; it was too light out, now, to risk going barefaced. And then she charged.
Did the Section Three operatives spot her on her way? Quite possibly—they’d have to be fools not to keep watch on the surrounding streets—but she gave them no time to act. She crossed the distance in a matter of heartbeats, scrambled up the side of the house almost as swiftly, putting even the local arachnids to shame.
To the chimney, then. Dignity yanked open the satchel, pulled a flintstriker from an inside pocket, then dropped the whole flaming package down the flue.
And then there was nothing to do but fall prone, brace herself for the impact, and let herself roll from the roof.
It was, thankfully, less than two full stories from the edge of the sloping eaves. Still, the ground hauled back and slugged her with the punch of a small god—at the same instant the house was slammed beneath the heel of a large one.
The blast tore through the structure’s inner walls to pound against the outer. Boarded windows blew out in a volcano of burning splinters and noxious gasses. Smaller jets of fume squirted from between the bricks, finding new paths through layers of powder that might, at some point in the past, have been mortar. The air grew thick, acrid, searing her eyes and the back of her throat.
Even though she knew the house had contained the brunt of it, she struggled to her feet and staggered away, wheezing and limping. A quick scan of her surroundings, to be sure that all eyes were drawn to the conflagration and not to her, and then she ducked behind the house across the street yet again. Returning to the roof was far more of a challenge; s
he couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and her right ankle refused to take her weight. Finally, however, she hauled herself over the eaves and flopped over on her back, sucking greedy chestfuls of air.
Between the blast itself, the scorching flame, and the incapacitating gas of which she’d gotten only the faintest whiff, the odds of Section Three survivors were less than slim. Still, Dignity spent the following hours, until the sun had reached its noontime peak and slid halfway to the farther horizon, lying flat on that roof. Everything hurt, her lips and tongue felt like old bone, and her stomach rumbled louder than a foundry. And still she waited, watching the fire brigade and the Crucible Guard—both of whom were clearly having a really unpleasant couple of days—dousing and then searching the wreckage; watching as crowds gathered, eager for news, as spreading rumors both whispered and shouted attributed the blast to some oncoming Khadoran offensive.
Only when they’d begun to haul charbroiled bodies from the rubble, and still no survivors had made any attempt to slip away, did Dignity decide the job was done and it was time to slip away herself.
***
The throng of emergency personnel around the burning house wasn’t nearly so sizable as it might have been had the blast occurred in Old Town or the Outer Ward, but it’d been big enough. The crowd around Surros Manor, even though it was now almost a full day since the firefight, was larger still.
The walk back had taken Dignity far longer than it should, not just because of her injuries but because she still insisted on checking behind her, on taking unnecessary turns, and on all the other standard precautions against being tailed—just in case.
The city’s mood had become one of nervous suspense and half-suppressed panic. The idea that the explosion heralded a Khadoran attack seemed to have taken root and flowered swiftly in the citizens’ war-fertilized imaginations. This despite the fact that nobody had the slightest notion why Khador would choose a residential neighborhood in the poorest part of town to begin said assault. The people moved at a hurried pace, trying to rush without looking like they rushed, craning their necks every which way as though expecting a crimson warjack looming around every corner. She’d spent much of the walk laughing—internally, of course—at the foolishness of civilians the world over, regardless of nationality.
As she’d neared the manor, she’d begun cooking up a plausible story, something about her being injured in the attack and then passing out somewhere in the trees at the edge of the estate. It’d be a bit of a stretch to explain a full day’s absence that way, but she was pretty sure she could sell—
That was when she’d spotted the crowd still milling about the manor. An official presence was to be expected, certainly, but this seemed like an awful lot of people, this long after the incident.
And then she’d drawn near enough to spot the armor and uniforms sported by many of the lingerers. The black and gold of the Crucible Guard was, again, to be expected. The navy and gold of Cygnaran military was not.
All Dignity could think, as she broke into a staggered run, was This better not mean that I’m not getting my CRS team!
***
Nightfall. Sheets of cloud swept by overhead, carried on blustery winds, flashing the occasional star or sliver of moon before shyly wrapping up tight once more. Such brazen displays always seemed perfectly framed in one of the windows, allowing those gathered in the sitting room—one of several in the manor’s many halls—to gaze at the sky while they tried to wrap their heads around everything they’d learned.
In the cushioned, high-backed chairs sat Oswinne Muir, Dignity Underhurst, Corporal Wendell Habbershant, and Lieutenant Katherine Laddermore. On smaller stools, dragged in for the occasion, perched Corporals Serena Dalton and Atherton Gaust. Serena’s eyes were rimmed in red, her regulation hair less neat than was her custom. If Dignity understood properly, she’d only last night learned of the deaths of over half her squad, including at least one close friend. Pacing the far wall, the roaring hearth constantly throwing her shadow over the rest of them in almost mechanical intervals, was the squad leader, Sergeant Benwynne Bracewell.
Even before she’d heard anything of their journeys, Dignity had known something was eating at Bracewell. She’d seen that look before, in the eyes of other officers. So far, she’d seen the sergeant’s grim façade crack only once, when she’d been introduced to Laddermore.
“It’s an honor to work with you, Lieutenant. You’re something of a legend in the Second Army.”
The knight had clasped her hand tight. “For me as well, Sergeant.”
Bracewell had seemed a tad puzzled by that. “You’ve heard of me?”
“No.” Katherine smiled at her. “We wear the same colors and serve the same king. That’s honor enough.”
Dignity, who’d forgotten how pompously career veterans could speak to one another, had forced herself not to gag.
Hours dragged by while Dignity waited to address them all, to find out just what in Morrow’s name was going on. First she’d had to sit through the baron’s tirade over her absence, moderated only a little by her hastily concocted story. Then she’d had to wait while Halcourt and Surros exchanged pleasantries not only with the Cygnaran guests, but the playwright Muir, and Minister Chalerynne, who had escorted the haggard squad from the gates.
Now, finally, they were gathered around a tray of brandy, the bare bones of their tales exchanged, and Dignity couldn’t help but feel that perhaps she’d inhaled more gas during the explosion than she’d initially believed.
“How much did you tell his Lordship, exactly?” Habbershant asked when Muir finished speaking.
“Just enough. He knows we plan to smuggle him and his entourage out along with the players and the rest of the Ordic delegation. I explained to him that your Reconnaissance Service helped set it up. I did not, obviously, say anything about the real mission, nor enlighten him regarding my own affiliation with King Baird.”
Dignity shook her head and seriously considered violating her “no heavy spirits while on a mission” policy. “I still can’t believe it,” she muttered, rubbing at her temples. “How did we not know about that?”
“A few of your superiors did.” Muir somehow managed to combine a casual shrug and a sip of his drink into a single elegant gesture. “Truth be told, I’m not overjoyed that the lot of you know it now. No lack of trust, you understand, but we may not always be on the same side of things as we are today. Had there been any way around it . . .”
“This whole mission falls under the Royal Secrets Proclamation,” Benwynne said from beside one of the room’s many oaken bookcases. “We’d be committing treason just to tell anyone about you.”
“As you say.” The playwright didn’t look entirely mollified, but he offered a friendly smile all the same.
“The Khadorans aren’t stupid,” Katherine noted. “If Halcourt and his people vanish from Leryn the same time your delegation leaves, don’t you think they’ll put it together?”
“We’ve thought of that. Several of my people are remaining behind at the manor. They’ll dress in Cygnaran styles or the occasional household armsman uniform, just enough to create the impression the guests are still present. They’ll disappear a week or so after we do.”
“And they can get home all right?”
Muir nodded. “I should think so. Khador’s looking for military units, not lone civilian travelers or—”
“Perhaps one of you can explain,” the sergeant interrupted, her mind clearly on other matters, “just how the bloody Reds knew where to ambush us?! They can’t possibly have known we were coming!”
“Not you personally, no,” Dignity said. “But once Section Three learned that we had operatives in Leryn, working to buy the formula, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that Cygnar would be sending someone to support me. After that, it was just a matter of watching the obvious routes and arranging swift communications—such as those flares you mentioned.” Then, although nobody could possibly blame her for it, “I’m
sorry, Sergeant.”
Benwynne grunted something that might have been, at best, the primitive ancestor of a word.
“And a godsdamned heavy warjack?” That from the gunmage, Atherton. “Those things move about as fast as grass growing uphill. How’d it get there?”
Laddermore cleared her throat. “At a guess, the same way they got so many clandestine operatives into Leryn, and who knows how many other cities. They’ve had plenty of time to arrange their pieces, Corporal; it’s not as though the invasion came as a surprise to them.”
“The Llael/Khador border is guarded,” Muir explained further, “but it’s hardly airtight. As long as they were prepared to move slowly, in small groups, they could have scattered advance forces throughout Llael weeks or even months before launching their offensive.”
“Fantastic,” Benwynne spat bitterly. “Now we all know how we got here, and why over half of us didn’t. Brilliant.”
Everyone suddenly seemed intent on memorizing the patterns in the fire or the colors of the many books.
“The question,” she continued with a little less bile, “is what happens now.”
“Our meet with di Meryse is in five days,” Dignity said, idly rubbing a thumb across the upholstery. “Master Muir—”
“Oh, Oswinne, please.”
“Oswinne. Can you and yours be ready by then?”
The playwright nodded. “Sooner, actually, but five days is good. It’s an appropriate amount of time for a cultural delegation like mine to gather its people and prepare for the return trip.”
Katherine coughed and raised her hand to cover it, in a gesture Dignity had come to recognize as the stifling of an inappropriate laugh. “I’m sure,” the knight said, lips twitching, “that I don’t wish to be nearby when you tell Baron Halcourt he’s stuck here for almost another week.”
Dignity, too, had to suppress a chuckle. Benwynne, on the other hand, didn’t appear especially amused. “So, what? We do nothing until then? Did I lose half my people getting here just to sit around before trying to survive the trip back?”