by Ari Marmell
“Not at all.” Dignity rose and began to pace, forcing herself not to fall into precisely the same rhythm as the sergeant. “I think we’ve taken the enemy out of the competition,” she said, “and I think we can trust di Meryse to honor his agreements, but we’re not going to assume either. Your men aren’t barracking here, are they, Sergeant?”
Benwynne cocked her head at the apparent non sequitur. “No, Minister Chalerynne has arranged for us take an entire floor at one of the local hostels.”
“Most of us, anyway,” Wendell grumbled. Apparently, he was still irked that the squad’s warjack—Wolfhound?—was being stored and repaired over in an Outer Ward facility.
“But I imagine,” Dignity pressed, “that you’ll be spending a great deal of time here, though?”
“His Lordship was, ah, most insistent that we contribute to his security, yes.”
“All right.” Dignity ran the idea over in her mind, examined it in the light of the fire. “I want you to keep, oh, five or six of your people out of sentry rotation, Sergeant. In fact, don’t let them appear publicly in uniform, and find them some other place to stay. I can supply the coin from operation funds, if necessary.”
She had everyone’s attention, at least. “What have you got in mind?” Katherine asked.
“I suddenly find myself allied with a number of people whose faces di Meryse and his underlings haven’t seen.” Her grin had turned absolutely feral. “I think, with Sergeant Bracewell’s kind permission, I’m going to teach them the lay of the city and see just how well we can make use of that anonymity.”
I’m missing something . . .
Located smack dab in one of the Outer Ward’s most industrialized quarters, the factory had been waiting for them, the loading doors unlocked. Ostensibly shut down for renovation and upgrades, it instead looked as though it had been utterly forgotten. Massive mechanized looms huddled under coatings of grime, shuttles dangled loosely over strands of decomposing fibers. Moth-eaten sheets hung from drapers, lackadaisically flapping in the faint cross-drafts like indolent phantoms, wafting dusty, free-floating sneezes throughout the chamber.
I’m missing something . . .
Dignity had hoped to track down the formula and make di Meryse choke on his arrogance, without this meeting ever taking place. Twice the alchemist had appeared at this or that public event. Twice had members of the newly arrived squad, men and women whose faces he couldn’t possibly know, tried to follow first di Meryse himself, and then his various contacts. And twice, they’d come up empty. The man was just that cautious.
Still, for all she’d tried to avoid it, she knew this was the right place. She’d confirmed the address three times with the messenger, an unshaven, unwashed, but clearly sober fellow who’d delivered her the information both memorized and in a wax-sealed envelope. Although the windows were tightly shuttered against what little daylight managed to crawl its way through the shroud of weather, the chambers within were dimly lit. Roughly one in four of the factory’s gas lamps burned with a low, bluish flame.
Muir and select members of the squad were even now making their way toward the border, the soldiers and the baron’s entourage disguised and hidden among the Ordic actors, stagehands, and cultural delegates. A handful of others, along with Master Sergeant Habbershant and Corporal Dalton, held position on nearby streets, hidden but ready to act at the first sign of trouble.
At her side, Sergeant Bracewell, Katherine Laddermore, Corporal Gaust, yet more of the sergeant’s people, and the young knight Sadler, spread out amongst the various warpers and spinners, ducking around whole cobwebs of fiber, alert for any ambush or deception. For the past five days, Dignity had kept careful watch on her surroundings, hunting any trace of an enemy presence, and hadn’t caught so much as a sidelong glare.
I’m missing something, godsdamn it!
“Ah! There you are, my dear Garland! I feared you might be running late.”
A trio of lamps flared on the observation balcony above, burning equal quantities of gas and melodrama. There, where factory managers might have overseen the workers in days past, stood Idran di Meryse. He was clad in deep colors and white ruffles, as formal as his garb at the opera had been. His teeth gleamed an almost unnatural hue.
Smug bastard hasn’t even bothered to bring any guards with him.
“Wouldn’t dream of keeping you waiting,” Dignity called back with a blatantly artificial sweetness.
“So I see. I see, too, that you’ve brought guests. I’d heard you had a few friends arrive in town recently. As I understand it, Minister Chalerynne was fit to be tied. He seems to be taking it rather personally that Leryn’s receiving so many dignitaries who can’t be bothered to inform him they’re coming.”
“How traumatizing for him,” Atherton muttered. “You know, I could shoot—”
“Don’t even think about it!” Benwynne hissed.
“I do hope,” the traitorous alchemist continued, “that your companions aren’t here to stir up any trouble. I quite thought we had a friendly little arrangement. Besides, the formula—”
“Isn’t here, yes, I know.” Dignity ran a fingertip across the nearest loom, then idly scraped away the dust clinging to her skin with her thumbnail. “Nobody’s here to cause trouble, di Meryse. Unless you are, of course.”
“My dear, I would never even consider it.”
“Fantastic.” Dignity reached into a satchel at her side and removed a thick stack of papers. “Bank notes, as you requested.” She shoved them back into the leather bag, fastened it shut, and dropped the whole thing at her feet. “Cygnar’s bid. Also the winning bid.”
Di Meryse chuckled. “While I admire your confidence, Garland, perhaps we ought to wait for our other guests?”
“I fear your other guests are unable to attend,” Dignity said with a broad smirk. “They had a more, ah, pressing engagement.”
For the first time, the alchemist’s expression slipped. “I’m not entirely certain I can just take your word for that.”
“Oh, take my word for it. I delivered the invitation to Vorona myself. You might even have heard something about it? A few days ago, in New Town?”
“Ah.” His own smile returned, but his fingers looked as though either they, or the banister they clutched, were about to split. “You understand that my people still have channels of communication with Khador? If you try to cheat me or do me harm, they can still deliver—”
“Would you please just take your blood money and make your delivery so we can be done with this already?”
“Fine. Toss up the bag, so I can be certain—”
“A moment, if you’d be so kind.”
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing from the darkest corners of the factory. The acoustics made it all but impossible to pin down; the reverberations somehow making each individual syllable more distinct, rather than less. Benwynne and the soldiers spread out, hands closing on weapons that, as of yet, lacked any clear target.
While she might not have been able to locate the source of that voice, however, Dignity had no trouble whatsoever identifying it.
Bloody hell . . .
“I have to confess to being a tad disappointed,” Dignity said to the room at large. “I really went to a lot of trouble to blow you up. I suppose you just left your companions to burn while you found some escape?”
“Much as I would like to taunt you with how I foiled your amateurish attempt on my life, no.” Even through the thick Khadoran accent, the fury simmering beneath Vorona’s words was unmistakable. “The simple truth is, I’d left the house not long before you showed up. I wasn’t there when your bomb went off.”
It was all Dignity could do not to curse her bad luck aloud. She’d been away from the place for less than an hour, fetching Drew and his reagents. For Vorona to have just happened to leave in that single window . . .
“I suppose I’ll have to be a bit more precise next time, then.”
“One of us will.”
>
Atherton was swiftly scanning the chamber, peering intently into the shadows, one finger caressing the hilt of a pepperbox.
“Don’t,” Dignity whispered.
“But I might be able to—”
“Do you have a clear shot? Do you know even roughly where she is? Then don’t reveal what you can do on a long shot.”
The gunmage grumbled, but nodded.
“Well,” di Meryse said, clearly struggling to regain control of the situation, “since you’re here, would you care to come join us and deliver your bid?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
She kept moving, Morrow damn her! Dignity still couldn’t get a handle on where she might be. Gods’ sake, the place wasn’t even that big, was it?
“Would you care,” the disembodied voice continued, “to take a guess as to where I was that morning, Garland?”
“Not especially.”
“Ladies, please!” The alchemist was all but pleading around tightly clenched teeth. “If we could just—”
“I was meeting with our other operatives in Leryn. The ones not part of my team. The ones who’ve been here for months, making themselves nothing more than part of the crowds and scenery.
“The ones, Goodman di Meryse, who have been watching you and your ‘cut-outs’ for the past week, and who delivered your formula to me not two hours ago.”
“Ha!” Di Meryse put a palm to his chest. “You wound me, if you think I’m fool enough to . . .”
“Truth or not,” Katherine hissed as the alchemist pontificated, “why is she explaining all this?”
The hair rose on the back of Dignity’s neck, and she drew breath to cry out . . .
“If it weren’t true,” Vorona asked, “could I afford to do this?”
The chamber ignited.
***
Katherine felt the air slam across her body, hard as any solid impact. The wall of heat followed a split second after, but she was already down, her head pounding as though Arius had clambered inside and gone for a quick gallop. She felt something sticky pooling along her cheek, in the hollow of her jaw, matting strands of her hair to her skin, and only then realized that she was bleeding from her left ear.
She made it up to one knee before someone grabbed the world and gave it a good spin. She’d have sworn the floor was no longer solid but consisted instead of rising and cresting waves; that the ceiling and the walls were engaged in a maddened waltz, constantly trading partners. She tried to stand, fell; rose again, collapsed back to that same knee.
Her sword—her father’s sword, her ancestors’ sword—no longer hung at her waist, ripped away only gods knew when. Even in her disorientation, her agony, she found enough attention, however briefly, to mourn.
The flames raged around her, greedily sucking up old strands of fiber, chewing rather more slowly on the wood of the looms and drapers. A second concussion shook the factory—was it smaller and more localized than the first, or was that an illusion created by her damaged hearing?—and she felt a rush of outside air, a brief touch of winter’s cold before it was wiped away by the conflagration.
Raising a hand to shield her face from the heat and swirling embers, Katherine tried to take stock, to find any of her companions. Straight ahead, another curtain of fire rose as though deliberately seeking to obscure her view, but not before she saw it.
Saw, and even in her disorientation, understood.
The far wall, and the balcony on which di Meryse had stood, were soot-blackened and slowly starting to ignite, but otherwise undamaged.
The charges had been placed to ensure minimal damage to that side of the room.
Katherine tried to call out to anyone still near enough to hear, choked on a lungful of smoke—and then something hurtled from the dancing fires to slam her, sprawling, across the floor.
***
The barest instant before the detonation, Benwynne came to the same realization that had struck Dignity a half second too late. She launched herself to one side, scraping a strip of skin from her hand as she slid beneath some rickety piece of equipment or other. Chunks of wood, some of which were already burning, rained over her meager shelter before the initial blast had faded. She blinked against the rolling heat, tears coursing down her cheek.
Something fell to the floor behind her with a very un-wooden slap. A quick glance revealed Atherton, bleeding from an ugly gash across his forehead, trying to beat out a small lick of flame on the hem of his coat.
“Gaust! Corporal Gaust!” Then, when she understood there was no way to shout above the roaring of the fire and the likely ringing in his ears, she grabbed the nearest hunk of debris—what appeared to be a foot pedal blown from another of the machines—and hurled it at him. She saw, rather than heard, his sudden yelp.
“What?” She didn’t hear that, either, but it wasn’t hard to figure out.
“Make us a way out!”
He just looked at her, puzzled. Again she shouted, and again he didn’t hear.
“Way. Out,” she mouthed at him, exaggerating every flex of her lips. Then, for good measure, she raised two fingers and thumb in the form of a gun and “fired” over his shoulder.
Atherton took a moment to take in the burning wall, and drew. Benwynne saw the crackle of unnatural blue in the air before she turned away and covered her head with both arms.
***
“What the hell?!”
From a nearby rooftop, where she and her rifle had a clean line of sight to the factory, Serena Dalton watched the windows blow out, the walls buckle, the flames lick and sputter through every crack and crevice. Her neck and cheeks stung in the rapidly alternating currents of hot and cold. “Get down there!” She waved both arms, very nearly jumping up and down, making certain she had the attention of her long-gunners on other buildings before the billowing smoke cut them off. “Get down there!”
Her surge of fear was equally as potent as the blast had been; she couldn’t lose any more of the squad, not so soon! Still, Serena was a lifelong soldier. She slung the rifle over her shoulder by its strap, rather than simply dropping it and running, took the stairs at a swift but careful clip. Wouldn’t do anyone any good if she turned an ankle en route.
She shoved through a knot of huddled civilians, sheltering in the foyer and yammering fearfully about the explosion, then through the rickety front door. It was like walking to a furnace, and Serena flinched before forcing herself out into the street. Something sloshed beneath her boots. The street was soaked, filthy rivulets running across the cobblestones in all manner of abstract patterns, and it took her a moment to realize she was seeing melting runoff from the old, polluted snow.
Two splashing strides toward the burning factory, before a hand on her shoulder yanked her to a halt. She’d already spun, fists rising, before she recognized Wendell’s haggard face.
“With me,” he ordered, already starting to turn away.
“Are you bloody joking?! Our people need—!”
“Di Meryse escaped the fire!” he snarled at her. “If we don’t get after him now, we’ll lose him!”
“But our people—”
“You know how vital this is!”
Serena straightened, whether bristling at his tone or pulled taught between conflicting urges even she couldn’t rightly say. “Are you pulling rank again, Master Sergeant?”
“Will I have to?”
She was saved the necessity of an answer—one that might have gone either way until the moment it escaped her lips—by a second, smaller detonation. The north wall of the edifice blew outward, crumbling to so much debris. For less than the blink of an eye, cerulean sparks flashed throughout the new gout of smoke and flame.
“There! They’re getting out. Now move, or this whole affair could be for shit!”
Scowling, but no longer arguing, Serena took off after the mechanik, desperate to keep the rogue alchemist in sight.
***
“D . . . Dignity?” Gods, I sound awful . . .
“Don’t try to talk yet. I’ve almost got you out.”
Katherine felt like she was peeling her eyes open, wondered how much was just in her head and how much was congealing blood. The twin gleams of the conflagration and the evening sun were a dagger through her forehead; and her wince against that pain, in turn, launched a new surge of agony through her bad ear. The ground felt as though it were sliding beneath her, and it was only as she bumped jarringly over a small heap of broken brick that she realized it actually was. Someone—Dignity?—was dragging her from the burning building by her shoulders.
“What . . .” She coughed, felt something break loose from the back of her throat, and tried again. “What hit me?”
“I did, actually.” Despite the agony, Katherine forced herself to focus. The tawny-haired spy was indeed the one leaning over her, tugging her through a massive hole in the wall and out onto the damp road beyond. She probably ought to be freezing; at least the fire was good for something.
“I’m sorry about that,” Dignity continued. “But it was either me, or a burning crossbeam from above. I figured I was probably a little bit softer.”
Katherine made herself grin, though the sensation of dried blood cracking and flaking from her cheek was disturbing. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that. Thank you, though.”
Another tug, and they were clear of the factory—or clear enough, at least, that Katherine’s next breath was more air than soot. “A few of Bracewell’s people have gone for horses. They’ll get you mounted and make sure you don’t break your neck before you’ve caught up with Muir and the baron. They shouldn’t be more than a couple miles outside the city by now.”
“No!” The knight clutched almost desperately at Dignity’s arm. “No, I’m seeing this through. I can still—”
“Katherine . . .” Dignity gently pulled out of her grip, then wrapped her own hands around hers. “Di Meryse made it out alive. A few of Bracewell’s people went after him. Bracewell and the gunmage followed them. Only reason I’m not doing the same is that they were already gone by the time anyone told me what was happening, and as soon as I have any idea where they went . . .