Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  They were in a long, wide tunnel. There were no buildings here, just the road. Ahead, it curved, so there was no sign of the tunnel exit, but the glowing arch of the entrance was visible a hundred meters behind them.

  The two loadbirds were dead, sprawled in their harness, crossbow bolts jutting from their sides. The driver, a young man in an Auxie uniform, sat on the box with his hands raised, showing no inclination to go for the weapon at his side.

  Beyond the wagon, spread in a rough semicircle, were a dozen men and women. They wore scavenged armor, bits of steel and fragments of unmetal over leather. Most carried crossbows, though Maya saw at least a couple of blaster pistols, and some wore swords or short spears. Sarah was in the first line, a blaster pistol in one hand, looking bulky under mismatched unmetal plate armor. Beside her was a tall, slim woman with long metallic-gold hair and an unmetal spear.

  Maya hurried forward and saw Sarah’s eyes widen in recognition. Crossbows and blasters tracked her as she came forward, and the tall woman retreated a step, but Sarah held her ground. Maya’s voice was low and urgent.

  “Please. Don’t do anything rash. I need to talk to you.”

  “He’s got a haken!” one of the men said from behind her. “They’re plaguing centarchs!”

  Weapons were raised all around.

  “Everyone, please stay calm!” Maya said. “Tanax, you too!”

  “You didn’t tell me everything,” Sarah murmured. She looked up at the tall woman, who kept her eyes on Maya.

  “What is going on here?” the woman said. “Sarah, you know these two?”

  “Just this one,” Sarah said. “I figured her for an Order scout. Apparently I wasn’t thinking big enough.”

  “And were you planning on informing the rest of us?” the woman said, her hand tightening on her spear.

  “My name is Maya,” Maya said.

  “And this is Yora,” Sarah said. “She’s in charge.”

  “Please listen,” Maya said. “We don’t have long. Nobody has to get killed here.”

  “Not if you get out of the way,” Yora said. “Centarch or not, we’re taking the Core Analytica.”

  “The Analytica’s not here,” Maya said urgently. “This is a trap. Raskos wants Tanax and me to bring you in.”

  Yora’s face hardened, and Sarah paled.

  “I knew something was wrong,” Sarah said. “Halfmask—”

  “Quiet,” Yora said.

  “Maya!” Tanax said, a dangerous edge in his voice. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re discussing the terms of surrender,” Maya said, loud enough for him to hear.

  “We’re doing nothing of the kind,” Yora said.

  “Please,” Maya said. “Listen to me. Sarah said your grievance is with Raskos, and this is your chance to prove it. I can guarantee your fair treatment. We’ll send to the Forge for a centarch to investigate. You can present your evidence.”

  “The Order has had a decade to curb Raskos’ excesses,” Yora said. “If they cared, they would have done something before now.”

  “The Order doesn’t know.” There had to be more to it than that, but Maya was running on instinct and didn’t want to complicate the case. “I swear that I will do everything I can to see that justice is done here.”

  “Maya!” Tanax said again.

  “Just shut up,” Maya shouted back. “Sarah, Yora, please.”

  “Halfmask wouldn’t trust her,” Sarah said slowly.

  “I told you to shut up about him,” Yora said.

  “I was going to say I think he’d be wrong.” Sarah took a deep breath. “This might work.”

  “I…” Yora’s eyes flicked from Maya to Tanax, then to the wagon and back again. For a moment, Maya saw mistrust and hope warring behind her eyes. “I’m not…”

  Sarah went stiff, looking over Maya’s shoulder, then screamed a warning.

  “Down!”

  The crack of a blaster bolt, in the empty space of the tunnel, was like a bolt of lightning at close range. The shot impacted with a flash bright enough to dazzle and a wash of heat. It caught Sarah high in the chest, punching her off her feet and sending her sprawling to the tunnel floor, bits of white-hot metal spalling away from her makeshift armor.

  “You fucking traitorous plaguepit,” Yora snarled, barely audible over the ringing in Maya’s ears. She raised her spear as a half dozen crossbows went off at once.

  No. Maya felt like she was watching herself from a distance. Her panoply stopped two bolts, sending a wave of cold through her, and she drew her haken. The blade ignited, the flood of deiat sending familiar pinpricks of energy spreading across her body. Yora was already slashing at her, and Maya parried high, her flaming sword spitting and crackling against the unmetal spear. Before Yora could disengage, Maya kicked her in the stomach, sending her stumbling backward even as the rest of the rebels pressed in.

  One older man in the rear had a blaster, and he raised it and fired. Maya interposed her blade, and the bolt of coherent energy twisted into the flaming weapon as though drawn by a magnet, impacting in a shower of sparks. The old rebel looked startled, but his companions had already tossed aside their crossbows and drawn their swords.

  No, no, no!

  But it was too late.

  The first man to reach her feinted high, then thrust low. Maya saw it in time to parry, and his ordinary steel parted easily where it met deiat, leaving him holding a stump. He backed away, gaping comically, and Maya spun to one side and chopped the head off a spear as it thrust at her. The first man dug in his pocket and produced a small clay bomb, which he hurled at her just as a third rebel bore in with a knife in each hand.

  Maya pulled a thread of deiat, sending a narrow bolt of flame to incinerate the alchemical. It burst with a whoomph, sending several men toppling. The knife-wielding rebel, a teenage girl, ignored it and came in fast. Maya was hard-pressed to parry, blocking one stroke while the other scored against her panoply. The knives were unmetal, too, holding their own against her haken. Maya took one step back, then another, as the girl pressed in, her face twisted with hatred.

  Stop. Please.

  “You fucking Order bastard—”

  The girl drove in with both knives. Maya hopped back to buy a moment, raised one hand, and incinerated her.

  The rebel’s curse became a scream of agony as deiat roared around her, the concentrated essence of the sun engulfing her in a pillar of fire. Her voice cut off mercifully quickly, and her blackened body toppled, shattering into a drift of ash when it hit the floor.

  The rest of the rebels hesitated, but Yora had regained her footing and went back on the offensive. Maya wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the breath.

  The golden-haired woman was good, her spear spinning and thrusting unpredictably, blocking Maya’s ripostes with the unmetal haft. The weapon was nicked and pitted where it had stopped the haken—even unmetal would eventually melt under the power of deiat—but Yora skillfully stayed away from a prolonged clinch. Every parry Maya missed sent a wave of cold across her panoply.

  She needed a moment to get clear, to blast Yora away, to end this fight, but she didn’t have it. Maya fell into the routines Jaedia had drummed into her, the fighting stances and reflexes, her own blade licking out to score Yora’s thigh. It burned through leather and flesh, and Yora stumbled for a moment, her onslaught faltering.

  “Stop this,” Maya gasped. “Help me—”

  Something passed across Yora’s body in a clean line from shoulder to hip, a distortion in the air like a line of folded space. For an instant, she looked puzzled, brow furrowed as though trying to work something out. Then a long slice of her body simply disappeared, flesh twisting in on itself. Blood exploded out of the gap, and the mangled wreckage fell away in two separate pieces.

  Tanax stood behind her, breathing hard, the blade of his haken a writhing snarl of impossible geometry. Several rebels lay dead in his wake, carved into pieces that still flickered and distorted where his weapon
had cut them.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  No. Maya gave a brief, jerky nod. Tanax turned away, avoiding Yora’s broken corpse.

  “Throw down your weapons and surrender,” he said to the survivors. “Now.”

  Most of them did. One man, the older one with the blaster pistol, started to run instead. Tanax frowned and raised a hand, and Maya felt deiat lash out. Space around the fleeing rebel twisted in on itself, folding his body in an impossible contortion with a distant crunch and a spray of blood. No one else moved.

  “Well,” Tanax said. “They made an unfortunate choice.”

  “They didn’t make a choice,” Maya said. “We were talking, and—”

  She looked up at the click of warbird claws. Three riders were approaching from the direction of the city. Two wore the white armor of Legionaries and had blaster rifles slung over their shoulders. Between them rode Raskos Rottentooth.

  Raskos. In Maya’s mind, a suspicion hardened rapidly into certainty. She turned to face him, her haken still crackling quietly at her side.

  “Excellent work, my friends,” Raskos said, whistling his bird to a stop and sliding off. “I see my trust in you was not misplaced.”

  Tanax dismissed the blade of his haken and bowed. Raskos swept past him, the two Legionaries at his side, and picked his way among the corpses. When he reached Sarah, he stopped and prodded her with one boot.

  To Maya’s surprise, Sarah responded, her words forced through gritted teeth. “Come a little closer, you plaguing fuck.”

  “Now, now.” Raskos looked down at her with his horrible smile. “Your rebellion is over. Your leader is dead. Tell me: Where is Halfmask?”

  “Check your fucking chamber pot.” Sarah struggled up on one elbow. Her other shoulder was a blackened ruin, leather and skin burned to identical black char by the blaster bolt. As she moved, the crust cracked and blood seeped through. “He’s too smart for your traps.”

  Raskos raised his foot, delicately, and pressed it down against her wound. Sarah’s jaw locked with the effort of stopping a scream.

  “Where,” the dux repeated, “is Halfmask?”

  “Get off her,” Maya said.

  Raskos looked over his shoulder and found himself staring at the point of her haken, divine fire boiling a few inches from his nose. His smile faded.

  “That woman is a prisoner,” Tanax said, coming forward. “She’s entitled to medical care.”

  “Of course.” The dux didn’t seem amused, but he lowered his foot. Maya didn’t budge.

  “Your men fired the first shot,” she said.

  Raskos tried to look at her past the blazing haken. There was sweat on his forehead.

  “My men had orders to give support if it looked like either of you was threatened,” he said. “For your protection.”

  “I wasn’t threatened,” Maya said. “They were going to surrender.”

  “A difficult judgment to make at a distance, unfortunately,” Raskos said.

  “Unfortunately?” Maya edged her haken closer. “This is what you wanted. A bloodbath, with us as your private executioners.”

  “I am not sure I like your tone,” Raskos said. “Agathios Tanax, please control your junior partner.”

  “Stand down, Maya,” Tanax said.

  Maya felt blood thundering in her head, and deiat pulsing through her body in waves. It would be so easy. Close her hand, and Raskos would be consumed in the fire of the sun, just like that poor rebel. Reach forward, and his rotting smile would melt around her haken.

  That’s what being a centarch is, isn’t it? Judgment.

  She wasn’t a centarch, though. Not yet.

  “Agathios Tanax,” Raskos snapped. “Stop her—”

  Maya lowered her haken, the blade flickering and fading.

  The dux let out a long breath. “Thank you, Agathios. I understand that emotions can run high in battle—”

  Maya had already turned away. She stalked past Tanax, toward the three warbirds. No one realized what she was doing until she grabbed the saddle post of the closest and pulled herself up.

  “Maya!” Tanax said. “What are you doing?”

  “What we should have done in the first place,” Maya said.

  She hauled on the reins, and the bird rounded with a squawk. A whistle brought it up to a trot, its long, loping gait quickly reducing Tanax’s protests to distant shouts. At the tunnel entrance, she passed a troop of Auxiliaries and caught sight of Beq and Varo among them. None of them had time to do more than gape before she was past.

  If we’re going to bring Raskos down, Maya thought, leaning over the bird’s long neck, we’ll do it properly.

  Chapter 14

  Gyre

  Fortunately, Nevin had not yet returned to pick up his gear.

  The thief had assembled his equipment on the roof of the warehouse opposite Raskos’. Each building was surrounded by a strip of gravel, which made the distance between the two at least ten meters, but it was still the closest convenient spot. Behind a concealing bank of chimneys, the crew had stashed wooden crates full of alchemicals from Lynnia’s workshop. There was also a small arcana contraption, something like a wagon wheel made of iridescent unmetal and colorful, faceted crystals.

  “What’s that for?” Kit said, watching as Gyre sorted through the stuff.

  “I thought you’d gone over the plan,” Gyre said.

  “The broad strokes,” Kit said with an unrepentant grin. “So what’s that thing?”

  “It melts screamerwire,” Gyre said. Sarah had explained its basic use, though she’d been light on details. “Once we get to the trapdoor, we activate it and then hope none of the stuff starts a fire.”

  “Exciting.”

  “It’s the easiest way in.” Screamerwire was ugly stuff, as thin and easy to break as a cobweb. True to its name, if it was torn, it would shriek loud enough to deafen anyone nearby. Fortunately for would-be thieves, it was rare and fantastically expensive. But Raskos can afford the best. “That’s step two, though.”

  “Right,” Kit said, glancing around the chimney at the gap between two buildings. “That first step is a long one.”

  “It’s all here,” Gyre said, finishing his checks. “Your eyes ready?”

  “Clear as day,” Kit said, pupils huge with the effect of nighteye.

  “Keep the neutralizer handy. We don’t know what it’ll look like inside.” Gyre picked up the grapple ball, carefully touching only the metal stick, and shouldered the coil of wire-thin alchemical line. “Let’s go.”

  Getting into Raskos’ private storehouse was never going to be easy. They’d seen at least two dozen uniformed Auxie guards, on top of the various alchemical and arcana protections. But Raskos’ paranoia worked to their benefit, too. Only a handful of senior officers were allowed inside the building, which meant that if Gyre’s crew got that far unnoticed, they’d be relatively safe.

  There were four guards on the roof, walking the edges in two pairs. They carried no lights—presumably they were using nighteye as well—and Gyre had watched them from behind the chimneys until he was sure he had the timing down. Given the size of the building, he had a couple of minutes to slip across, but no longer.

  Now he ran for the edge of the roof, Kit following closely behind. The grapple was a simple piece of alchemy—a ball of squishy, gooey stuff that would stick hard to anything it touched, except for a specially treated metal stick. Holding the stick by the free end, Gyre took a running start and whipped the thing around, sending the gooey ball sailing out into the darkness. The alchemical line trailed behind it.

  The ball landed on the opposite roof with a soft splat. Gyre gave the line a quick tug to confirm it was stuck fast. He spilled a few drops of glue from a tiny container onto the roof tile at his feet, pressed the near end of the line into it, and stood back. The length of alchemical wire now stretched between the two warehouses, straight and taut.

  “You’re sure you can do this?” he said to Kit.
“There’s a lot of Auxies down there who are going to be very surprised when you fall on their heads.”

  Kit snorted. “Watch and learn, Halfmask.” She stepped out onto the line with one foot, then another, balancing easily.

  “Just don’t step on the grapple at the far end,” Gyre said, smiling. “We’d have to cut your foot off to get you out.”

  Kit didn’t dignify that with a response. She stepped forward again, a steady walk, the line shifting slightly under her feet. Then she twisted, bending over, and for a heart-stopping moment Gyre thought she was going to fall. Instead, she turned the motion into a tumble, one hand pressing against the line, then the other, executing a perfect cartwheel on a wire-thin bridge over forty meters of darkness.

  Plaguing Doomseeker, Gyre thought, but not without a hint of admiration. And, he had to admit, a certain appreciation for the lithe, elegant lines of her body in her well-fitted thief’s gear.

  When she’d reached the other side, he started across, doing his best to ignore the buzzing sensation at the pit of his stomach. Wire walking wasn’t his favorite trick, and he certainly wasn’t trying any cartwheels, but he made it.

  “Okay,” Gyre whispered. “Low and careful to the trapdoor.”

  There wasn’t much cover on the roof, just a few banks of connected chimneys, and Gyre hurried from one to the next as quickly as he could. Kit, padding behind him, was as silent as a cat and just as quick. The trapdoor was a massive thing, iron-banded wood in an iron frame, with no handle on this side.

  He activated the anti-screamerwire arcana with a twist and set it down beside the trapdoor, then extracted another couple of vials of Lynnia’s genius from his pouch. The first contained an oily substance that would drip through cracks and coat anything it touched. The second was a catalyst that would turn that oil into a vicious acid. Careful application of the pair was an art, but fortunately it was one that he’d had plenty of practice with in his years as Halfmask. Thin wisps of caustic smoke started to rise as he worked.

  “Guards coming,” Kit whispered from behind him. “Must be shift change.”