Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

  A glance over his shoulder showed First Sentinel the Rebirth engine’s building a block and a half back. Blurred Fists re-appeared as a red streak, then slowed to join the group in their spectating.

  “Good to go.”

  And then, with a flash, the building was swallowed by a smoke, the boom rumbling the street beneath them. First Sentinel activated his shimmercrab goggles and filtered through the smoke. Where there should have been nothing but rubble, the Rebirth engine still stood, coruscating with energy, multi-colored lightning arcing up from the device into the sky above. And around the engine, the smoke clumped into the form of gargoyles, which took to the sky, glowing red maws wide. First Sentinel could swear he heard them screaming for blood. A few yards away, fish began falling from the smoke, and beyond that, a passing couple fell atop one another, and stumbled to their feet as one person, limbs jumbled together.

  “Shit,” First Sentinel said. Nevri had been right, or at least partially right. All the dynamite had done was kick off another Spark-storm. “It didn’t work.”

  He snapped open the briefcase, looking at the marble.

  If they left now, the Rebirth engine would stand, the mission a failure aside from weakening the Smiling King’s forces. But the only option they had left to destroy the artifact was to trust Nevri’s gift and use COBALT-3’s explosive.

  He held the marble out. “Do we use it, or not? Quickly, before the storm can spread.”

  “Yes,” said Sabreslate.

  [No,] said Ghost Hands.

  “Yes,” from Blurred Fists.

  “No,” from Sapphire.

  “Yes,” said Aegis. “We have to finish this, otherwise there’s no way to use this mission to stop the summit.” Three to two. He could tie the vote, but a tie was hesitation. They had to act.

  “Do it,” First Sentinel said, handing the device to Blurred Fists. They’d all been briefed on Nevri’s instructions, for reasons just like this.

  Blurred Fists took a slow breath, nodded to the group, then disappeared into the storm.

  Moments later, Blurred Fists returned. “All done.

  Now we wait, right?”

  In answer, the sky split in two with thunder louder than First Sentinel had ever heard.

  A cobalt-and-silver cloud of energy rose up from the Rebirth engine like a lava plume from a volcano. The cloud rose up and up, clawing towards the moon above. It crested, held still for a moment, shimmering in the night, and then dropped. But cloud didn’t just drop, it flowed out like an immense, rippling wave from a drop in a pool. It spread from the warehouse into the surrounding streets.

  Cracked open by the explosive, the wave cut through the sky, flowing out into the city like a pack of wolves. It rolled over clusters of people fleeing from the storm, and through the magnification of the shimmercrab goggles, he saw the explosive work its terrible magic.

  It peeled flesh from skin, shredding victims to the bones, which shattered on the ground. And from the bones, he saw transparent shapes rising and join the wave.

  City Mother strike me blind for my hubris.

  That’s it, isn’t it. She gave us a Soulburner.

  Every country on the continent had banned them over

  A century ago. The last one used destroyed an entire city.

  Synthesized from the essence of souls of those dying from torture, Soulburners were incredibly difficult to produce, each taking the energy of several thousand victims to fill its charge.

  He’d learned about them at the academy. He’d never seen one used, but everything fit: the blue-silver energy, the cacophony of screams, the movement of the energy wave. Every soul it consumed added more fuel to the spell, would extend the wave, reaching farther and farther like a wildfire, until all available fuel was spent. Unlike other ghosts, the spirits in a Soulburner were solid, moved like a wave. They could be contained. But they’d have to act fast.

  So that’s what you were up to, Nevri. Destroy the machine, us with it, and a thousand of the Smiling King’s citizens in the process. When I get my hands on her…

  First Sentinel pushed back his anger and guilt, setting his mind to the problem. There were thousands of civilians in the immediate area. And every one of them that dies is on my head.

  “It’s a Soulburner!” First Sentinel shouted to the group. A round of cursing.

  He continued. “Every person it consumes add power to the spell! We have to cut off its power, get people out of its path. We need to go up. Far up!”

  Blurred Fists strung together twelve curses in the time it would take First Sentinel to say one, and Ghost Hands floated off the ground, wavering.

  Aegis took command. “Sabreslate, pull up a disk of the street. Ghost Hands, take us up above the wave. Pull as many people as you can above the cloud.”

  Sabreslate took a deep breath as the silver cloud spilled down the street towards them. She ran a quick circle around the Shields, dragging her hand along the stone. She dropped to one knee, and put both hands on the street, turquoise threads unfolding from her like the petals of a fresh-blossomed flower. From a roof above, Ghost Hands raised her hands, and the disk shook, then broke free of the street and rose up into the air.

  “Hold on, Ghost Hands! You can do it!” Aegis cried. The silver cloud rolled toward them. “Higher!” The disk lurched, and First Sentinel hunched down for balance. The cloud of souls passed below them.

  First Sentinel heard panicked voices rise up from the crowd.

  “Why me?”

  “Join us!”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Help!” and more.

  This is my fault. Every one of them. If destroying the Rebirth Engine costs another five hundred lives, have we really helped anyone? She’ll pay for this. I swear it, so help me City Mother.

  First Sentinel turned to his team. Blurred Fists was shaking. Sapphire averted her eyes. Aegis stood as still as one of Sabreslate’s statues, taking it all in.

  No doubt he’s blaming himself every bit as much as I am.

  First Sentinel looked down into the cloud, knowing he shouldn’t. They are my responsibility, and they deserve to be remembered.

  The cloud was partly translucent. A cluster of spindly arms and half-formed ghosts rent apart an old man, husked him like sweet corn and pulled his ghost up to join them as they seized upon another victim. That one was an aged Pronai who didn’t have the strength to struggle as they broke, folded, and spindled his bones.

  The Soulburner would fill Audec-Hal; turn the whole city-crevasse into a bowl of hunger and destruction, until there were no souls left to feed it.

  “we need to stop this thing, now. Any ideas?” First

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  First Sentinel

  “We need to stop this thing, now. Any ideas?” First Sentinel called, his voice dwarfed by the Soulburner. [It’s hard enough just keeping us aloft.]

  Sabreslate said, “even if we erect one physical barrier, the souls are coursing down every street in Audec’s Bowels. This thing moves like a cloud, it will flow and fill wherever it can. The only way to stop it is to cut off its fuel supply and let the wave dissipate.”

  It’s all slipping away, the waters are above my head and I was an idiot to think I could swim. Now we’re all going to drown in my arrogance.

  “What if we just raised another wall?” Sapphire asked.

  “I don’t know if I could do it fast enough.” Sabreslate admitted.

  “Try,” Aegis said. There was no room for negotiating with that tone of voice. First Sentinel recognized it as the same tone the first Aegis used. He found himself wondering much of each bearer stayed with the shield when they passed. Thoughts like that reminded First Sentinel how little they truly knew about the Aegis. Since the first days, he’d just trusted it and its bearer.

  First Sentinel sank into his stance as the disk shifted, tilting into a turn to take them ahead of the wave of souls. “I need you to gain on t
he wave and fly low over one of the greystones!” Sabreslate shouted, more for the other Shields’ sake than Ghost Hands, who could pick whispered thought out in a cacophony.

  The disk dipped down as they passed the cloud. Sabreslate leapt off and hit the roof running. She pulled the cobblestones from the street up to make a wall as she sprinted. Building connected to building across the street as she turned the neighborhood itself into a barrier.

  The Soulburner cloud crashed against her construct, the spirits crawling up the side, scrambling for more fodder. They hit an invisible wall and lost momentum. The cloud fell back toward the street as Ghost Hands called out, [Brace yourselves]. The disk slid down into a rough landing on a roof, the sound of stone grating against stone eclipsing the hungry souls for a long moment.

  First Sentinel and the Shields dropped prone, hanging on as the disk collapsed through a corner of the building and then sliding down toward the street. Ghost Hands took to the sky once more and followed her wife in a quickly-forming but ever-widening spiral. Together, they started to contain the cloud, repeating Sabreslate’s miracle several times more, until the entire neighborhood had been walled off. Along with hundreds of victims they hadn’t been able to save.

  Minutes later, the silver cloud receded as the fuel for its hunger burned out fast, the loss of lives contained.

  Where the Rebirth engine had been lay only rubble. At least the Soulburner had fulfilled its original purpose.

  And then he saw the Spark-storm, still rolling through the neighborhood. Rays of iridescent light leapt through the sky, took impossible turns and flowed over and down. The Rebirth engine was gone, but it had birthed one last storm.

  First Sentinel looked to Aegis. The younger Shield pointed toward the storm, as if to say “can you see this?” First Sentinel nodded, seeing his son’s chest sprout a yellow thread of fear, one to go along with the fresh-born threads in each of his friends’ hearts. We’ve gone from a battlefield to a deadly wave and now we’re in the midst of yet another storm. This is a nightmare.

  With Ghost Hands and Sabreslate still controlling the Soulburner, First Sentinel was left with the three other Shields to deal with the storm, and no transportation.

  First Sentinel started walking toward the storm, his hip a dull roar of pain. “Split up, damage control. Only call for support in extreme circumstances.”

  “It’s a Spark-storm. Everything’s an extreme circumstance,” said Blurred Fists.

  “He’s got a point,” Sapphire said. True enough.

  First Sentinel restrained a nervous laugh. Keep it together, old man. “Get to it.”

  He pulled the grappling gun from his belt, nodded to Aegis who was doing the same, using one of First Sentinel’s older models. They hooked their grapple lines and jumped off the roof toward a blue-and-white fire in the distance.

  Will we ever really be done, or has the whole city gone mad? Have we cracked the lid keeping the city contained, broken the delicate balance while we trying to tip the scales of power? City Mother, watch over us in our folly.

  * * *

  First Sentinel would have thought it almost a blessing that many of the people in Audec’s Bowels were dead before the storm hit.

  Then he saw their animated corpses shuffling down the street. Shifting twitching masses clambered for anything, the stench of tearing flesh and seeping blood as their bodies changed under the purposeful chaos of the Spark.

  They’re looking for something, but what? First Sentinel had never seen the Spark animate the dead before. It had given form to ghosts, warped the minds of the living, but it had never moved the dead like this, puppets on ragged strings.

  It could be some kind of synergistic relationship with the Soulburner, latching on to the remnants of the gem’s energies. Or maybe it was just terrible, abominable luck.

  Whatever caused it, First Sentinel, Sapphire, Aegis, and Blurred Fists faced a long street of shuttered doors and muffled screams as a hundred walking dead pounded on walls and crawled through windows.

  You couldn’t kill what was already dead, so the Shields cut through the horde with somber efficiency. Aegis took off heads with swipes of his shield; First Sentinel snapped necks and broke spines with swings of his fighting sticks and blows from his shock gloves, trying not to let himself think about who these people had been before. Blurred Fists pushed the crowds back from the civilians that had managed to escape the Soulburner cloud.

  The sky above the neighborhood was as a painter’s wheel, constantly changing from blue to midnight black, showing impossible combinations of mauve, yellow, chartreuse. The buildings on the street were melting like ice cream at noon, seeping down from the tops. In minutes they’d be misshapen piles serving as mass graves. City Mother, preserve us.

  What was Nevri hoping to accomplish with the storm? Undermine the Smiling King’s territory? Take us out with the storm? Both options were all too plausible.

  One of the Spark-touched corpses lurched across the street at First Sentinel. He jumped back; wishing any of the buildings had the strength to hold a grapple line. Instead, he circled away from the puddle and toward the next doorway on the street, where he heard banging at the walls, muted shouts from the interior.

  “Let us out please there are children!” said a woman in the hurried cadence of the Pronai.

  First Sentinel hurried up the steps to the landing of the greystone, sweeping aside a corpse that was pounded mindlessly at the door. He twisted the doorknob. It only spun in a circle, broken. He kicked the doorknob through its socket and shouted, “I’m coming in!”

  First Sentinel rammed his shoulder against the door, but it didn’t budge. It was sticky at the sides, the borders of the wood grown into the doorframe like roots. First Sentinel drew a knife and cut at the roots, kicking the base of the door open an inch or two. He pressed up and in, watching as a pack of Spark-touched corpses shambled up toward him, clumsy feet failing to scale the steps.

  “Come on, come on.” one last lunge and the door snapped, dumping him ungracefully into the apartment building. First Sentinel tried the nearest door as he shouted up the stairs. “Everyone out, now! The building is going to collapse!”

  This door was stuck as well, but it was only fused around the doorknob. He made short work of it with his knife.

  First Sentinel threw open the door and a Pronai woman sighed in relief. She scooped up her toddler and raced for the exit. Three steps into her run, her feet stuck to the ground like it was flypaper. But the rest of her kept going. Joints and muscles ripped at the knee and the femur, and she crashed to the floor at his feet, turning as she fell to protect her child. The toddler slipped out of her hands and First Sentinel dove to catch it.

  The child was screaming, redder than the fresh-spilled blood all around them.

  “I’ve got you.” The child continued to wail as he looked to the maimed woman. I don’t think she even feels the pain yet. Small blessings. First Sentinel sat the child down on a chair for a moment and hauled the footless woman over his back in a fireman’s carry. She reached out for her child, and First Sentinel retrieved the infant and hurried the three of them out of the building. Above them, the ceiling started to bubble and sag.

  Time to go. he took a deep breath and pushed on, weighed down by the woman. Come on Wonlar, just like when you were young.

  The storm-made corpses were still trying to climb the stairs. They weren’t getting anywhere, but they were still in his way. The Pronai woman’s blood seeped down his leg as they left the building. She wouldn’t make it.

  Wounds didn’t tend to close in a Spark-storm, and First Sentinel had seen the neighborhood’s only doctor torn to shreds by hungry spirits just minutes before. But every life was worth saving, so First Sentinel drew his grapple gun and shot out a line, pulling them up and out of the way.

  The dead moaned with a vague sadness and pawed at his feet. For a moment he smelled the blossoming of crocuses among the stink of death. Just the storm, playing tricks with my mind.


  Another hour of chaos and the storm passed, along with the Pronai mother. She left him with a screaming child, a broken district, and his ever-mounting guilt.

  They’d destroyed the Rebirth engine, and if they could get the word out to the tyrants that Nevri had betrayed them all, they might be able to stop the summit. But the cost… Nevri made puppets out of us. What would we have let her get away with if we moved on her schedule? half of him dreaded finding out, the rest couldn’t wait to know so he wouldn’t be stuck imagining the worst.

  But first, they had to put the dead to rest. The Smiling King’s forces were nowhere to be seen, so the Shields gathered the survivors together to burn the bodies and say prayers over the fallen. Audec’s Bowels would not recover from this disaster. Within a week, it would be a ghost town, haunted by the enormous ribs that formed its skyline, seized upon by the Spark-touched and other castoffs, inhospitable to the decent poor who had been stranded here. Another territory lost in the war between the Shields and the tyrants.

  Every time I try to make things better, make a decisive move to free my city, it comes back to explode in my face. Maybe I’m just fooling myself? Maybe I learned folly from a deluded fool and it’s just taken me fifty years to realize it.

  First Sentinel picked himself back up again and pushed on, his doubts swirling around him like the recently banished spirits of the dead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Interlude—The Plutocrat

  Nevri looked out on Audec-Hal as the smoke cleared. From her personal mansion at the head, building towering over the city from its place atop Audec’s Skull, she saw dozens of fires burning down to embers.

  First Sentinel thought himself clever, striking before the appointed date.

  She’d anticipated the Shields’ early move, and so when her spies brought word of the chaos in the Smiling King’s district, she sent the word to her teams.

  Sixteen groups, seeded around the city, carrying passes allowing her people into the other oligarch’s domains, struck all at once.