Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

  Looking at the map, the memories piled up. Hundreds of battles, strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and failures. My failures. If the tyrants come to an accord and work together to destroy us, the city will never be free.

  “We have to stop the summit,” he said. “How?”

  Rova leaned over the table, her shadow covering the map. She pushed the figures of Nevri and Medai together. “We strain the existing alliances and set them back to infighting.”

  Bira added to the thought. [What if we steal the next drug shipment from Nevri to the Smiling King, find a way to fence them to Yema. We make it known that the goods are hot, say they come from the Smiling King. They’re all suspicious of one another, more so now heading into the summit.] The figure of Nevri slid to one side, Yema to another, leaving the Smiling King in the middle.

  Wenlizerachi jumped in. “Then we let the information trail get back to Nevri through her network. Nevri thinks she’s been betrayed by the Smiling King and Yema.” he gestured to the Smiling King.

  Rova nodded. “The man in the middle tries to deny it, but no one believes him because he’s crazy to begin with. COBALT-3 sides with Yema who provides him with subjects, and Omez throws in with Nevri—she’s got the money.” She moved COBALT-3’s figure beside Yema and Medai Omez’s next to Nevri, leaving the Smiling King alone at the center.

  A broad smile bloomed on Wonlar’s lips. This was his team, his family.

  Rova gestured at the map. “They’re split two and two against one, and the summit dissolves. Nevri will refuse to deal with the Smiling King and Yema, and we get some breathing room.”

  Sarii chuckled, likely enticed back to the plan by the promise of chaos. Sarii touched the bases of several of the figures and set them to acting out fistfights. “We fan the flames of their bickering. Exacerbate the damage done to their organizations and when the dust settles, two, maybe three could be out of the picture.”

  [But then the ones left have all the more power.] Bira’s words were heavy with doubt.

  Wonlar shook his head. “Not immediately. They’d have to consolidate and rebuild, but we won’t let them. We press the conflict—with only two left, each of them will see sole dominion of Audec-Hal within their grasp. And when the last battle erupts, we make sure neither of them walks away from it.”

  They were past the time for incremental change and small victories. We need to topple their regime now. Between the storms, the disappearances, and the aging population, it wouldn’t be long before the Republic of Audec-Hal was lost to memory entirely. Most alive didn’t remember the Republic, and every year that passed fewer would know anything but the tyrants’ reign.

  “That could work.” Rova held her chin with one huge hand, deep in concentration as she looked across the map at the stone figures.

  Sarii molded the figures into moving stone flames.

  Wonlar answered. “But how many citizens will burn in this blaze? The longer this conflict drags out, the more people will be hurt. We have to be fast, surgical.”

  “I know one way that we can end this faster…” And now she flips, playing adversary.

  “We can’t win this war if we pretend that we can overthrow the tyrants without people getting hurt.” Wenlizerachi’s voice sped up as he talked. He moved through a dozen poses in an instant, pausing to speak. “But Wonlar has made his stance clear. We all have lines we won’t cross. No reason to have the same argument again.”

  “If the tyrants come together and we cannot, the city is lost.” Wonlar waited a moment, then turned to Sarii, stalwart skeptic and frequent burr in his saddle. “What do you say?”

  “If you just used your power…” she said.

  Wonlar matched her stare, and the room was silent again. Sarii’s eyes crinkled in the look he knew as frustration, with him or with the situation, he didn’t know. Then she relaxed, looking away. The aging Shield took his seat again, and the others followed suit.

  He a long breath, glad to have one thing settled. Now, where is Aegis?

  Another knock on the door startled Wonlar from his thought. The pattern was slow, three solid knocks in succession. It wasn’t a Shield code, and it wasn’t the pattern he told customers to use. But Jull was forgetful… Wonlar’s voice was soft. “It’s probably just a customer. I’ll send them away. Just in case, go to my room to wait.”

  Wenlizerachi was gone in an instant, his chair unmoved. Sarii simply stood, gathering up her figures and melding them back into her flowing stone cloak. Rova and Bira shuttled out of the room headed for the bedroom. Bira used her telekinesis to fold up the map and pull it to her from across the room.

  Grabbing a butcher’s knife from the kitchen, Wonlar held the blade behind his back as he opened the door. Better safe than dead.

  The woman in the doorway was small, her forehead coming up only to Wonlar’s shoulder. She was Millrej, a Full-blood snake-kin with brown scaled skin and a forked tongue that flicked as she spoke. “Executor Nevri sends her greetings, First Sentinel.”

  Wonlar slammed the door on her as she spoke, then shouted to his back room. “Out! Now!”

  He’d never learned her name, but he knew that woman, she was one of Nevri’s lieutenants, a trusted servant of the Plutocrat.

  Introductions were a luxury when you were fighting for your life. She was vicious with a pair of scimitars, but not the most dangerous of Nevri’s thugs. Wonlar took her to be more bureaucrat than warrior.

  Wonlar threw open the closet and pulled out his belt, coat, and grappling gun.

  “Evacuate! Nevri’s forces!”

  Rova’s voice boomed from Wonlar’s room. “They’ve got the windows covered!”

  Wonlar opened the door to the balcony and looked down to the street. Forty of Nevri’s soldiers stood with crossbows trained on him and the window to his bedroom. Not good, not good. in the moment of stillness, when he was ready to dodge, ready to die, ready to explode in twenty directions at once, they didn’t fire.

  They’re waiting.

  Wonlar heard a click behind him and the creak of hinges swinging open. Wonlar turned as the Millrej slithered in, crumpling papers and pushing aside books.

  She raised a scaled and manicured hand and said, “I didn’t come to fight.” She let it sink in for a beat, and then added, “in fact, I have an offer from the executor. Nevri would like to hire you for a job; she thinks the terms will be most agreeable.”

  This has to be a trap. “what?” Wonlar backed away from her as she advanced.

  “Do not run. I am unarmed, but you see that the building is surrounded. If Nevri wanted you dead right now, you’d already be a pincushion.”

  Just because they hadn’t fired before didn’t mean they would not fire at all. But even if he killed the Millrej right there, NevrI’d have hundreds of troops standing by. The executor wasn’t above sacrificing a lieutenant to get what she needed; the bottom line was her only concern.

  Nevri’s 8,000 mark bounty on First Sentinel’s head was enough to feed a district for a year. Wonlar took it as a badge of pride.

  “Stop there,” Wonlar said, still holding coat, belt, and grappling gun. She halted, sitting back on her tail.

  Wonlar’s four teammates emerged from his bedroom, each wearing their Shields’ masks. They surrounded the Millrej, Rova in the back. She could take a half-dozen crossbow bolts without slowing down, but Wonlar hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He didn’t have to worry about being identified. The universal face of the Ikanollo would shield him as long as he was dressed in street clothes. When he put on a mask, it wasn’t to protect his identity, but to send the message that the role of a Shield was bigger than any one person. There had been five Aegises, four Blurred Fists.

  Wonlar latched the grappling gun to his belt and drew a fighting staff. I haven’t survived this long by being lax in my preparations.

  The Shields let Wonlar take the lead. Sapphire didn’t like negotiating with enemies, Blurred Fists would talk around them and never accomplish anything, Ghost Ha
nds was always taken for aloof, Sabreslate would incite them past any reasonable conversation. And Aegis was still unaccounted for.

  “Talk,” he said with the force of a command. She never broke eye contact, ignoring the other Shields.

  [Can you get a read on Dlella?] Wonlar thought in Ghost Hands’ direction.

  [No. She’s got something to block me,] came Ghost Hands’ answer. Not surprising, but they might as well try.

  The Millrej woman’s tail lapped back and forth behind her during a little slice of tense silence. Wonlar kept his ears open for the trap. “I am Dlella. She would like to contract your team for an acquisition project in two weeks’ time. The pay is generous, and the results are in keeping with your mission.”

  Sabreslate snorted. “Do you think we’re complete idiots?”

  “Yes,” said Dlella, cutting Sabreslate off. “But your priorities in this case make you a valuable asset. The Spark-storms. How many are there per year?”

  What is she getting to? a day after a storm, they were on everyone’s mind, but Wonlar couldn’t look past the correlation. “Two, sometimes as many as four,” he said.

  “And how many so far this year?”

  “Seven,” Wonlar said.

  “Nevri knows what’s been causing the higher frequency. And she wants to help you stop them.”

  “Bullshit,” Sabreslate said. “We know less about Sparkstorms as we do the fall of the titan.”

  “What do you know?” Sapphire asked.

  Bira’s voice echoed in my mind. [Don’t trust anything she says. Nevri’s doubtless trying to trick us. But we can let this lackey run the course of the trick, and perhaps we will learn what Nevri really wants.]

  Dlella smiled, clearly enjoying knowing more than the Shields. “The Smiling King. He’s found—or created, we don’t know—an artifact that produces Spark-storms, that or increases their frequency.” The story was plausible, at least it sounded like something the Smiling King would do if he could. But First Sentinel had never taken him for an inventor.

  [How did you find out?] Bira asked.

  The snake-woman smiled again. She could keep out Bira’s probing, but didn’t block the mind-speech.

  Interesting that she has that much control. Spark-touched power, or does she have an artifact?

  “Everyone has a price,” she said. “Nevri will provide you with the location of this device and sufficient means to destroy it. You will see that the Smiling King’s artifact is eliminated, and that its destruction cannot be traced back to Nevri. Its end will be a resounding victory in your insurrection and Nevri will see one of her rivals greatly weakened.”

  If the offer was legitimate, it could be exactly what they were looking for. Which is why Wonlar couldn’t see it as anything but a trap. He looked over his shoulder to make sure the soldiers hadn’t scaled the walls, weren’t sneaking up on them, the offer only a distraction. “Why has she come to us?” Wonlar asked.

  The rest of the Shields stood around him, still tense and ready to move. Blurred Fists was deathly still, waiting. Rova stretched, showing off her towering stature. Ghost Hands floated silently, and Sabreslate’s raiment of stone undulated over her body like waves on a quiet shore.

  “Your … cell has proven very adept at secretive operations, with a penchant for precise property damage. And with your stance on the welfare of the people, you have a moral prerogative.”

  Wonlar scoffed. “How do we know you won’t just blow us up when we go to pick up the explosives?”

  She reared up on her tail, her head nearly brushing the ceiling, and then settled back down. Wonlar was unimpressed. The thick tail was strong, but more lightly armored on the bottom. All she’d done was expose herself to attack.

  He’d fought larger foes—Spark-touched Freithin the size of a house, driven mad by pain, Onyx, one of The Smiling King’s lieutenants, and the shardlings. Dlella said, “Because executor Nevri will deliver the explosives to you herself.”

  “Will she wrap them up in a bow made from the bones of the innocent she’s killed?” Sarii asked. Wonlar refrained from cutting her off. Sarii frequently stepped in to the negotiations, fanning the flames of tension. But if Dlella was off-balance, she might reveal a clue to Nevri’s motives.

  “I will wrap it with your skin if you continue this obstinance, Jalvai.” She spoke the name of Sarii’s race like something you’d say as you spat in the street.

  “And what assurance do we have that this won’t just be a death trap?” Wonlar asked.

  Dlella’s tongue flicked the outside of her mouth, lolling side to side. “Are you just going to leave the artifact in place? Do you need the executor to hold your hand, bring you sweets?”

  Wonlar shrugged, trying to look confident. “We could just blow it on our own.”

  She slithered up to him, drew her hood above his head. “You don’t know where it is.”

  Wonlar smiled. “Doesn’t mean we can’t find out. Triangulate the location of the last four Spark-storms, cross-reference against residential quarters, troop patrols. I should be able to narrow the location down to a two-mile radius in, oh, a week.”

  A snarl crossed Dlella’s face for an instant. She pushed it down and resumed her businesslike demeanor, sinking back down to eye level and pulling back. “If you do it Nevri’s way, you get ten thousand marks and one ton of medical supplies.” That’s more than my bounty, enough to start our own war. Another war, that is.

  The last one hadn’t ended well.

  Wonlar thought of aria and smelled crocuses, even though they hadn’t started to bloom.

  But how many families did she tax to the brink of starvation for that money, how many children press-ganged into her distant wars over dwindling Ibje ore?

  “Again—why not hire mercenaries? You could get a squad for a tenth that price.”

  Dlella slithered back and forth, stalking the group. “Your organization has the … skills required to get to the artifact. It is heavily guarded by the Smiling King’s army of abominations—it is his most prized possession.”

  “Not his blankey?” Sarii asked, the stone in her hand folded over like a blanket.

  “We need to confer before I can give an answer,” First Sentinel said, running over Sarii’s obstinance. Resources, information, and access to Nevri’s plans. The offer was too good to refuse, which made it all the more dangerous.

  Dlella nodded. “I will meet you—with a small escort, of course—at the Ruby Shackles in two days. Come at the moon’s zenith with your answer.”

  That could be the real trap, waiting to get Aegis as well. Nevri was smart enough to give her employee a flexible plan.

  Dlella bowed to them with mock courtesy and then slithered out the door. Wonlar followed her and checked the lock, wondering again how she’d found him. A tip from a neighbor, or had the amulets been running out even faster than I thought?

  A few seconds later, when the soldiers didn’t fire on the apartment and no one burst in to kill them, he looked back to the others and asked, “what do you think?”

  “Are you insane?” Sabreslate asked.

  Wonlar put on more water for tea.

  I’ve lived here for years, made friends, and learned all the best routes out of the neighborhood. Now on top of everything, we have to move. Dammit.

  * * *

  The next morning, Wonlar stood on the balcony of the Shield’s Viscera city safehouse and faced the warm sunrise of approaching spring. This apartment was far smaller, and had only the bare minimum supplies, none of the comforts of home. And no Selweh.

  One solitary crocus stretched up towards the sun. He’d planted crocuses in every safehouse he could as a reminder to himself, a bit of stability. Quite a sign. City Mother be praised. he bent down slowly from the knees to protect his hip, and then wrapped his fingers around the flower as he savored its smell.

  The smell sent him back to the Shield’s failed revolution twenty years before.

  Each year the crocuses retreated to
wait out the cold winter, and each year they emerged, heralds of rebirth. The winter of the oligarch’s reign had held for fifty years in Audec-Hal, and Wonlar longed to see the spring.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  First Sentinel

  Twenty Years Ago

  Crocuses.

  It smelled of crocuses the day Aria died. My raiment was soaked through, gore layered over grime.

  Around me, three armies and a rebellion raged through the streets. We thought the tyrant’s in-fighting would be the spark that lit the fire of revolution, the time when we could wake the city from its nightmare.

  We were wrong, and Aria paid the price. Huddled in an alley, she was bleeding out in my arms and I was helpless to save her.

  I’d pulled her into an alley and hid behind an overturned food cart. A sense-mask cube gave us privacy, but nothing in my belt of tricks could close that many wounds, replace that much blood. Wide gashes made orange cross-hatchings of her chest.

  I cupped her face and watched as her threads frayed and snapped one by one, her ties to the world fading.

  Emerald and jade were the last to go—the first line trailing up and away to the safehouse and her infant son—the other, a jade band that crossed the hand’s span between us. It had taken years for that thread to re-grow.

  Aria’s faltering fingers found my face, slipped underneath my mask. Her hands were so cold. I willed her to live. We were supposed to find each other again so she could to forgive me. We could be together again, the way we were supposed to.

  “Don’t leave me, love,” I said.

  “Watch my little Selweh. Guard him.”

  I should have been his father, not some dissident journalist. “Nothing will hurt him, I swear.”

  She coughed blood onto my jerkin, shaking her head. “Make a promise you can keep.”

  I held her close, the emerald thread hidden by the press of our bodies. “I’ll guard him with my life.”