Tinker's Justice

by J. S. Morin

  “So, we have ourselves a ship,” Stalyart said. “With Kadrin blessings and no one in Megrenn the wiser. Excellent.”

  “I ain’t feeling too excellent right now,” Tanner replied. He wiped his sword on a clean part of Jadon’s blanket, then returned it to its sheath. “I’m gonna go find me a drink, and it’s nothing to do with celebratin’.”

  The other Tanner, aboard the Jennai, was on his own now. He could get drunk enough for both of them.

  Cadmus kept his feet quiet as he could on the floors of the stone tunnels. Strange rumors persisted about the daruu, that they were so in tune with the stone that they could know a man by his footsteps a mile away, simply by feel. In all his years with Kezudkan, Erefan had never been able to say for certain if they were true. But in this place of daruu legend, he gave those legends fair consideration.

  Gederon was less careful, leading the way. They had been going for far longer than Cadmus had expected. Despite not finding Kezudkan, neither had they run into any other daruu. He had warned the lad not to run them into anyone, but it surprised him how long they had gone unnoticed.

  “Stop,” Cadmus ordered in a harsh whisper. “I recognize this tunnel. We’ve gone ‘round in a loop.”

  “What? N-n-no!” Gederon protested. “We’re al-almost there.”

  Just then a world-hole opened behind him. Cadmus turned to see Greuder at the controls, beckoning urgently. Kupe and Charsi were watching from near the viewframe. “Come on Cadmus! There’s been an attack. We need you!”’

  “I trust you all to handle things,” Cadmus snapped. “I’m just one man, and no warrior. I’m so close now! Close that thing before I put a bullet through it.”

  Greuder gave a nervous chuckle, despite his obvious distress. “You couldn’t bring yourself. Kupe, go drag Cadmus back here. His brake lever’s snapped off.”

  Kupe gave Greuder a nod and hopped through the world-hole without hesitation.

  Cadmus didn’t hesitate either. In one smooth motion he took aim and put a shot through the spark line that fed the viewframe.

  Kupe spun and looked back, but there was no world-hole any longer. “What’d you do that for?”

  “Kaia can fix that in under an hour,” Cadmus replied. “That ought to be plenty of time. Stick close, and don’t hurt our guide. His life is what he’s getting in return for a meeting with his uncle.”

  The Jennai was listing dangerously. It had grown worse progressively as Rynn and K’k’rt waited by the world-ripper. A few of the rebels had reported in. There had been world-holes opening around the ship, spiriting away the wounded to the lunar headquarters. She was far past worrying that it was no longer a secret. Madlin had an even more secret locale, and look at the good that was doing them. She had outsmarted herself with her preparations, with the assumption that having only Rynn able to retrieve her would be security enough.

  Now, Rynn’s life was measured in minutes. Danilaesis was loose somewhere on the ship. The reports of magic being flung about and a boy with a sword spotted among the invaders removed all doubt of that. He would be looking for Anzik—who by fortunate coincidence was aboard and able to help defend the ship—and for Madlin. On the one hand, Madlin was safe from the rampaging madman. On the other, he knew full well that Rynn was her twin, and would treat her accordingly.

  K’k’rt cleared his throat. Rynn briefly confused it for the goblin muttering to himself in his own language, before he continued in Korrish. “You don’t suppose it might be time to evacuate ourselves, now, do you?”

  “And leave whoever is left to their fates? We can’t save everyone in time, even with the help from our other base.”

  “I’m not sure we can save ourselves, if he comes for us,” K’k’rt replied.

  Rynn nodded. Maybe they couldn’t save themselves. She didn’t pray often, but if not at a time like this, then when? “Holy Eziel, defender of my people, lend me strength in my time of need. I am technically about to violate your tenet about not killing my own kind, but I would submit to you that Danilaesis Solaran is an inhuman monster, and thus exempt. So if we could both look the other way this once, I think everything will work out for the better. Thank you.”

  “Nice god you’ve got there,” K’k’rt remarked. “Does he ever show up to help?”

  “Nope, not yet,” Rynn replied. “But he’s never tried to eat me, either, so I’m still scoring him a goal up on your dragon.”

  K’k’rt snorted. “If we had a dragon here, this warlock would be dead already. One fiery breath would be all it would take.”

  One fiery breath. If only he knew.

  Rynn rechecked the count of ball bearings in her coil gun. Six. Same as the last time she counted. If she needed more than six shots—if she needed more than one or two—it wouldn’t matter whether she had any more than that.

  The ship shook. There was a long, agonized groan of steel being stretched in directions it was not meant to go. Rynn put her hands out to steady herself as the floor shifted, tilting at a new, steeper angle.

  “And what if he drops us from the sky instead of coming to us?” K’k’rt asked. “How many runes do you think still hold us up?”

  “Enough,” Rynn replied, thought she wasn’t so sure of that. They were in a room with no windows to the outside. It was possible that they were drifting down already. It wouldn’t take anything as dramatic as freefall to kill them. The Jennai would likely break apart even hitting the water at a moderate speed.

  The main dining hall had once played host to the wealthiest kuduks in Korr. They ate pastries dusted with powdered gemstones and drank from crystal that cost more than a human at auction. During the rebel’s custodianship, it had seen plundered coin passed back and forth over games of chance. Humans who had never put twenty tenar together in the same place drank exotic liquors from another world. Now, it had become a battlefield.

  Hayfield hunkered down behind the bar along with four of his fellow soldiers. They’d had luck, but their supplies of ball bearings had run out. Eight Veydrans and a pair of daruu in fancy armor sprawled out on the dining hall floor, along with a dozen rebels. Not everyone carried coil guns aboard ship. Only a few officers and raid leaders made a habit of it. No one wore their assault armor except squads on assignment. Who could have guessed that the worst battle in the rebellion’s brief history would be fought on the defensive, aboard their own ship?

  The wind whistled through the broken windows, letting the cold outside air into the ship. The clouds in view beyond the glass were rising, or at least it looked that way.

  “This is it, boys,” Hayfield said, despite one of his soldiers being conspicuously female. “We’re down to cutlery. Stick to loading kitchenware. Most of the spoons and forks are brightsteel and won’t shoot worth piss.”

  “Want me to go scrounging?” one of the soldiers asked, hooking a thumb at the scattered bodies throughout the room.

  “Ain’t gonna find much,” Hayfield replied. “Those steel balls don’t stop for much. Most of ‘em probably gone clean through the ship and out to sea.”

  “Piss.”

  There were murmurs of agreement with the sentiment. Hayfield wished he had better news to share, but truth was truth. He could lie to his superiors when the situation called for it. He could lie to a kuduk without blinking. But he couldn’t lie to men (and a woman) about to die with him.

  A shockwave tore through the room, ending idle conversation. Hayfield’s makeshift squad was sheltered from the blast by the bar, but every bit of glassware in the room shattered, from the chandelier, to the drinking glasses, to the bottles behind the bar. The squad was doused in liquor amid a rain of broken glass.

  “Fire what you got,” Hayfield ordered. He followed his own command and stuck his coil gun over the bar, peeking just enough to catch a glimpse of the crazy young Veydran with the black sword. Pulling the trigger, he fired a paring knife across the room and ducked back behind cover. Peeking again to see if he had done any damage, he found the Veydran still
coming. His squad mates fared no better, and there was a moment’s panic when the Veydran giggled.

  Whoosh.

  A plume of flame rolled across the bar, forcing those stealing glances across at their foe to duck down. But there was no safety in that. The liquor caught fire, and being soaked in it, so did Hayfield and his comrades.

  Frantically, Hayfield tried to tear off his clothing, but he was soaked to the skin and alcohol burned quickly. He had heard that alcohol fires burned cool, but when it came to being aflame, fire was still fire. The giggling laughter turned to cackling and faded. The Veydran had left them to die.

  As soon as their foe was gone, a world-hole opened. Hayfield was screaming when the bucket of water hit him, followed by others for his companions.

  “Get them through, quick!” Jamile ordered. Rough hands grabbed him, but Hayfield didn’t care. He was dimly aware of being hauled through the world-hole to someplace that wasn’t on fire. That was good enough to let go and let his mind drift into unconsciousness.

  It was time to go. Actually, it was well past time to go. Tanner slunk along the corridors of the Jennai, avoiding both sides in the conflict. He was in less danger than perhaps anyone on board the ship, but that would only last so long as neither side saw him consorting with the other. His destination was the liftwing hangar, which he could only hope had survived the airship’s violent jolts and shudders as Danilaesis snipped the strings that suspended it from the heavens.

  Keeping a bloody sword in hand was an excellent way to avoid confrontations with either side. A nice, clean, shining sword might mean you were still looking around for someone to stab with it. A man with a clean sword was prone to get orders shouted at him from the first green-eared sergeant that crossed his path. Drench one in someone’s blood, and you took on the look of someone engaged in serious business. In Tanner’s experience, that told most people you were fine on your own.

  Of course, few people seemed to carry swords in Korr. It was sad. Tanner had purloined a coil gun from a fallen rebel, and he could see the appeal. Punching holes in brick walls with the tug of a finger had its charm. But Tanner had grown up with a blade in his hand—in two different worlds. There were few in his own world who could match his skill, and he doubted that Korr had anyone worthy of crossing blades with him, let alone besting him. He was a relic in a world where guns ruled the battlefield, and every hole-riddled corpse he passed reminded him of why he didn’t belong in Korr.

  The liftwing hangar was a shambles. The tilting deck had let the individual airships slide into a pile at one side of the room. Tanner couldn’t let that stop him, since he had no other plan at the moment, and Danilaesis’s plan seemed likely to get him killed if he didn’t do something soon. The young warlock had every confidence that his father would get them both out before it was too late, but Danilaesis had a habit of thinking of himself first and last, and if there was time after things were settled, then maybe someone else. Tanner wasn’t in the mood for a maybe. He climbed into the pilot’s seat of the least entangled craft and buckled himself in.

  Rynn’s people had never let him actually fly one of the liftwing airships, but he had talked to the pilots at length about how they worked. Pilots were like sailors; get them started talking about their livelihood and you could hardly shut them up. Tanner had everything he needed to know that didn’t come from practical experience. He pressed the switch and grinned when the engine roared to life, twirling the propeller into a blur at the nose of the liftwing. For a moment, he forgot the war going on throughout the ship and basked in the childish glee of commanding something big and powerful.

  The noise in the hangar was horrific. Normally, the liftwings were towed into the plaza with a winch, but there was no time or manpower for that. The engine’s echo reached deafening levels as Tanner threw the throttle to full power and the liftwing forced its way free of the tangle of wings and chassis. His airship lurched and tugged, finally pulling completely free. It shot forward, and Tanner jerked the control stick back and forth, oversteering in both directions until he managed to aim it through the hangar door.

  The plaza was deserted but cluttered. Supplies that had been stowed along the outskirts of the massive strip of steel had spilled across the runway. Tanner throttled back, steering drunkenly around the worst of the debris, hitting some of the boxes and a pile of rope. Someone at a window in one of the converted vacuum tanks shouted down, asking where he thought he was going. It seemed a stupid question: anywhere but here.

  Tanner hit the end of the plaza runway well below the speed the pilots recommended, tumbling over the edge rather than lifting gracefully by virtue of Korrish science. As he fell nose-first toward the sea, Tanner hammered the throttle to full once more and pulled back on the control stick. The little liftwing pulled out of its dive and flew level.

  Tanner left the throttle at full, not caring about his heading. Danilaesis could send someone for him later, but he wasn’t going to risk his life on waiting.

  “He’s coming,” K’k’rt said in a hushed tone. “I can see him in the aether. Last chance. We can turn on your machine and be gone before he gets here.”

  “We’re staying,” Rynn replied. She crouched behind a corner of the control console and took aim at the doorway.

  “Turn it on anyway,” K’k’rt said. “It glows in the aether. We’ll be harder to see for him.”

  Rynn nodded. “Go ahead. Do it.” She never took her eyes or her aim from the doorway.

  This is it. It’s him or me.

  When Danilaesis appeared in the doorway, Rynn pulled the trigger. He was already ducking for cover, but the shot traveled too fast to avoid. It caught him in the shoulder and spun the warlock to the ground out of sight of the doorway.

  “Well, hello Rynn,” Danilaesis called out from the hallway. She could hear in his voice that his teeth were gritted as he spoke. Her shot had hurt him. “You’re a better aim than most of your men, but then again, most of them were pissing themselves at the time. Must be a real distraction. The problem all of you keep running into is that none of you can take a punch.”

  Rynn replied by firing two more shots, aiming at the wall where she guessed Danilaesis hid on the far side. With a shaking hand, she loaded replacement shots into the back of the weapon. Six shots total. She needed a full complement.

  “Fine, no need to be terse about it,” Danilaesis called around the corner. Clearly her shots had missed.

  When Danilaesis peeked around the corner again, he was crouched low. Her shot went wide as an unseen force tugged at the barrel of her coil gun. Danilaesis grinned, staring right into her eyes from ten paces away. Then he unleashed the lightning.

  Rynn fell back against the wall, twitching, watching spots swim before her eyes. The force tugging at her coil gun vanished, but her arm was limp. Smoke rose from the world-ripper machine, which must have shared the blast with her.

  “You idiot tinkers and making everything metal,” Danilaesis said. Rynn closed her eyes, listening as he approached. “I can’t even miss with lightning if I tried.”

  A guttural phrase, filled with clicks and glottal stops, came from the corner of the room. Rynn heard the rush of flame and felt warmth on her face. She peeked one eye open and saw a wash of fire wrapping itself around a shielding spell that protected the warlock.

  “You sniveling goblin scum,” Danilaesis said with a sneer. He turned and flung another blast of lightning; she couldn’t see where it connected.

  But Danilaesis was distracted. Rynn raised her arm, still tingling from the spark’s aftereffects. Her first shot glanced off Danilaesis’s shielding spell. He turned to face her. The second caught him square in the chest, launching him across the room to strike the wall with a hollow, metallic thump. The third caught him in the forehead and went through. The fourth, fifth, and sixth were just for good measure.

  Rynn drew herself unsteadily to her feet, buoyed by the mechanical stabilizers in her tinker’s legs. She walked across to Danilaesis’s b
ody and looked down at the horrifying mass of burst flesh she had caused. She held her coil gun trained on him, on the chance it was all some trick of light and magic.

  “I think he’s dead,” K’k’rt said. The goblin tinker wobbled as he made his way beside her. “No need to reload.”

  Rynn nodded. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She turned toward the world-ripper, but stopped short. The machine had been on a moment before, idle but humming with spark energy. Now, it was lifeless—just like she was about to be.

  Just then, a world-hole opened, free from any viewframe on her end. The hole shuddered in the air … as if someone were trying to hold it steady as the Jennai dropped from the sky! Rynn had been right, they were losing altitude.

  “Grab hold,” Greuder yelled from the far side, extending a hand. The scene beyond was a mass of miserable humanity, with wounded soldiers and refugees crowded in throughout the main chamber of the lunar headquarters. There was a story there, but one that would wait for less pressing times.

  Rynn wrapped one arm around K’k’rt, and reached up to take the offered hand. Her coil gun clattered to the ground as the old twinborn baker pulled her to safety.

  Madlin let loose a long sigh, and eased her hand away from the switch. In the little viewframe of her hideaway within Tellurak’s moon, she watched Danilaesis’s body drift down, along with the rest of the Jennai. The airship passed through her field of view until she was looking down on it from above. It hit the Sea of Kerum with a force the World Ender Cannon might have envied if the weapon were not the first part of the ship that hit. The splash must have launched a hundred feet into the air. It took time for the hull to sink below the water, folding up and breaking apart as impact damage and the might of the sea itself wrecked the rebellion’s months of work.

  Switching inputs on the viewframe, Madlin turned her head lest she be blinded by the light. With the twist of a dial, she sent the view to the harmless void between worlds. It was no longer set to watch Korr’s sun from the inside. Rynn was safe. Danilaesis was dead. She had not been forced to flip the switch and find out what would have happened if she brought the sun to the Jennai.