Last First Snow

by Max Gladstone

  Chel. Bill and Kapania Kemal. Bel. Temoc.

  They should have been safe. No sentimentality here, simple fact: they should not have died so easily. Temoc’s sacrifice woke the gods. Even weakened, they might have saved their worshippers for a few seconds, given Chakal Square an instant’s defiance to trumpet through history. Why not?

  She searched the Square for the vast and immanent presences she had seen.

  And found them.

  The Quechal gods stood overhead, arms open to receive burnt offerings.

  Elayne’s stomach turned. She wanted to be sick. She could not afford to be sick. Good thing she was no longer precisely human, or she would not have had a choice.

  There was a logic to it, she had to admit.

  The gods had slept for decades, eking out a life off Temoc’s little sacrifices. Last night’s exercise woke them and left them hungry. After the Wars, even gods knew their limits. The choice, from their perspective, was simple: waste what little power they possessed in a defensive tactic that posed no threat to their adversary, or gather the dead and use their sacrifice to power an assault.

  The gods sent their power forth. A wind moved among the dying of Chakal Square.

  Elayne opened her eyes to watch the first of the doomed things rise.

  “Temoc,” she said, though he could not hear her. “I am so sorry.”

  * * *

  Scorched hair and baked flesh, bubbling skin and crisping muscle, ash and bone and the cries of the dying, and everywhere the stench of alchemy. People dove for cover under the remains of tents that were themselves aflame. Temoc stood in the end of the world.

  Through the smoke, through the haze, he saw columns of pure white light ascend.

  At first he did not understand. Stared blankly into the sky, into the Couatl wheeling overhead—some new weapon, some mercy to kill his people faster? But these lights rose heavenward, and as they neared, Couatl spun in disarray.

  Then Chel cried out in fear, in pain—an animal noise pressed from her by contortions deep within. She knelt, clawing at her skin. Her back muscles wriggled like snakes, and where her nails touched, her clothes and flesh parted and through the cracks flowed the purest, brightest light Temoc had ever seen.

  Her screams became a roar.

  That light seeped from the wounds she’d torn, a viscous shining fluid that scalded as it coated her shoulders, arms, neck, spine and back and legs. Beneath the light she remained herself: charred clothes and skin, heaving, screaming, standing. She stood, wracked with pain. Her face was a radiant mask.

  The light flowed and bulged at Chel’s back and folded itself into feathered wings.

  Yes, the gods said, and he understood.

  He understood, and wanted to fall to his knees and weep hot tears into the consuming fire, that took everything from him, and left him with—

  Power.

  Once he’d seen a dam break, no small backriver dam but one of the great waterworks of RKC’s youth, a structure of concrete and stone fifty stories high. Hundreds of thousands of gallons battered forth, a white wall tearing through the plain, scouring soil to bedrock, shredding houses and farms, shattering the fleeing horses it overtook. Water became solid in two states: frozen, and in motion.

  Each cell in his body was wired to a lightning generator. If not for the scars, if not for sixty years of prayer and twenty of war, he would have broken like those horses on the flood. He stood, instead, as light ripped through him, as the shadows of his skin sunk deeper than black, a hunger more than a color. And he was strong.

  He grew strong with the deaths of hundreds. One sacrifice, last night, had woken the gods. They found the people of Chakal Square in their dreams, and sang songs of faith to them as they slept. This morning, they tasted the blood of those who remained. As planned.

  We few, he said when he raised the knife, we fortunate few, are called to give our hearts.

  Rise, Seven Eagle sang in his blood. Fly, and fight.

  He wanted to tear his scars from his skin. Wanted to curse the gods and run from Chakal Square, to crisp himself to ash in the fires the King in Red made fall.

  But some choices could not be unmade.

  Not when Chel spread her glorious wings. Not when she looked at him sadly, and flew.

  The shock wave of her rising bent him to his knees. And he knew, as he had known once but forgotten, that his gods were wise, and also clever. They knew Temoc of old. They knew Eagle Knights. They knew he would not leave his people.

  Not when there was vengeance left to take.

  The Couatl turned for another pass.

  He rose to meet them in the air.

  The square’s heat bore him up as he flew, arms at his sides, chin up, no need for wings. Swept past Chel in a blur, and past the others, too. Senses dilated open by this rush of power, he saw them, the risen of Chakal Square: twelve altogether. Not all whole, or wholly alive. One woman had all the flesh melted from the right side of her body, skin replaced with divine light. A man flew still aflame, his burned-off hands replaced by shining talons. A child, gods, they’d chosen a child, he’d thought all those gone—a child was brightest of them all. Twelve, against the Couatl.

  The Wardens’ mounts broke in confusion. Scales and serpents, silver chains, star crowns atop their heads, and Wardens rode them, faceless masks reflecting fire.

  Temoc aimed for the lead Warden, and, accelerating, recognized him. The tall one, the broad one, who threw the rock that killed the child that started it all. Sent here, by some twisted logic, to see the end.

  Temoc held out one hand, tightened his fingers into a ball, and struck Zoh in the face at a large fraction of the speed of sound. The Warden’s neck snapped, the Couatl roared, and the other angels joined the battle.

  Temoc fought so he would not weep.

  * * *

  “Sir,” Captain Chimalli said. “There seems to be a problem.”

  They stood atop the King in Red’s steed, a mile from Chakal Square and the battle. Chimalli flicked through various Wardens’ fields of view. The King in Red, behind him, watched.

  The first run went smoothly: gripfire deployed, on target within operational parameters. Casualties high. The second wave turned strange.

  Lights danced among a cloud of Couatl. Occasional bits of dirt fell from the mass: Wardens tumbled from their mounts. Many were caught; Couatl swept to snag them with their claws. Others died.

  Voices chorused in his ears.

  “Move like nothing I’ve—”

  “—Out of nowhere—”

  “—Dive, dive, dive—”

  “It’s on my tail, it’s coming, it’s—”

  “—Got one with a net, but she’s burning through—”

  He could only glimpse the forms that moved among his Wardens, killing. A flash of wing, an image of an impossible face, a melted hand, a claw. He recognized, at least, the shadow whose sweeping fists ended too many transmissions. “Sir,” he repeated.

  The King in Red’s star eyes shrunk to crimson dots. He stood motionless, hands on his brass-shod staff, wind billowing his robe.

  “All teams,” Chimalli said back over the link to his Wardens. “Burst out. Surround them. Javelin units on my mark.”

  “Acknowledged.” Couatl took flight from surrounding rooftops. Chimalli counted twelve lights, and Temoc. His men could handle so few, surely.

  Far away, he heard gravel grind against gravel. He realized, with sudden deepening horror, that the King in Red was laughing.

  “Sir?”

  “Clever. Not Temoc’s idea, unless I’m very much mistaken. And here I thought all we’d have to do today was hammer a shield until it broke. Captain. Bring us in.”

  * * *

  Rainbow wings and black scales flashed. The world was a cloud of ash and blood, prisms and nets, claws and teeth and glass and death.

  Chel danced within her light, a splinter tossed on a torrent of divine will. Jaws snapped where she had been moments past, and she turned and
struck back faster than she had ever moved before. She tore open the Couatl’s head, and blood steamed in the air. A claw battered her from behind and she fell, spinning, wings flared to catch herself on emptiness in time to block a talon meant for her throat—and then she broke the talon, grabbed its wrist, and spun the Couatl around into another, sending both wheeling toward the fire, wings beating desperately against the empty sky.

  Couatl seethed around her, and divine lights darted through them, killing. Two lights landed on one Couatl’s wings, and pulled up until bones broke. The lights zipped away, and one flew into another serpent’s jaw. That light pulled free, but the beast’s jaw slowed him enough that a thrown net caught him and he tumbled toward the ground, faster, faster, until his wings cut through the strands and he soared up to fight.

  The sky was a mess of blood. She felt the other lights, their joy and pain. They were together, wound through one another to carry out a grand task.

  And that was all that remained of the others. They were singular as blades: when one broke, pinned through the chest by a Couatl’s lucky strike, she felt his passing: the joy of purpose served, and gone. The others were dead, or hovered on the verge of death, their pain and final rage giving their new forms strength. They were part of this miracle machine, built by gods to do their will. Chel lived. Beneath the rush of power, she smelled the melted human bodies from the square below, and wanted to die. It would be easier.

  Temoc leapt from Warden to Warden. He was a gift of violence to the world. A javelin darted toward him, and he shattered it with a backhand. Nets caught him and he ripped them open. He strode on air. Couatl struck him from all sides, and he laughed. Blood stained his hands, and his eyes burned.

  The surge and pulse of battle eased, the whirlwind slowed. Through the confusion of serpents and wings, Chel saw the sky, and the city below. For the first time in ten frantic minutes of battle, she had no immediate target, no one to strike, no one to kill.

  They were winning. Gods. All the dead, and all the dying, and still they were about to win.

  Did that make it worthwhile?

  Couatl corpses splashed into the lake of fire that was Chakal Square.

  Someone cried victory.

  She glanced around, talons raised, new instincts awake to the chance of threat. More Couatl took off from surrounding rooftops, moving into position for a barrage. The Couatl they’d fought winged to shelter. Chase after them, catch them. Easy. The gods sang war song in her blood.

  Then the northern sky rippled and turned black, and the gods began to scream.

  * * *

  Elayne burned in the city’s stead. Fire crowned the Skittersill and would have eaten it but for the Aberforth and Duncan deal; Purcell’s firm, meanwhile, tried to pull free of its obligations, and would have succeeded but for Elayne. She bridged the fire and the firm, and the two met in battle, on her and through her.

  She was too far gone to scream. Fire could not consume wood and brick and stone, so it torched instead through her mind. The iron-wrought cages where she locked her memories melted. Images long discarded, moments of weakness and pain chained in dim corners, broke free, and she:

  was a twelve-year-old girl hiding facedown in cave mud, breathing moss and muck as a mob poured past the cavern mouth, torches in their hands and whiskey on their breath. She tasted fear and bile and ice-cold anger. Run, she had to run, but could not—and wouldn’t it be better to crawl into the dark and remain, and grow a twisted thing twisted more by shadows?

  was fourteen and killing for the first time, with a simple steel knife in those days of sorcery, entering a man’s ribs again and again and again, the shock of his body’s weight through the steel as he bore her down.

  was the snow that fell on Dresediel Lex for the first and last time, and left smoking holes in stone. Gods died in the sky, pierced by thorns of light, as Craftsmen clad in war engines marched through the city’s wreckage. Stench of motor oil and blood, saltpeter and ozone, brick dust and sand. Life’s million colors faded black and white from soul-loss as she staggered from her war machine down an alley, fatigues bloodsoaked, her eyes shining and her body wet, toward where Temoc lay impaled.

  was a body in a dim-lit room in Alt Coulumb, given away from herself, robbed even of the right of rage. City lights outside the window, sharp as instruments of torture, while in her soul’s depths delicate mad hands gripped the roots of love and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and willed them to come loose.

  was a hundred moments of pain and defeat, anger and sorrow, innocence lost, and none mattered, because from each she had emerged stronger than before, welding out of horrors new truth, new determination. To be what? Professional? Successful? She was both, she’d been both, and here she stood, saving a city’s bones even as its people died. She had grown strong. But what world had she built with her strength? A world where she saved what could be saved and left the rest to rot?

  Around her the circle closed, her emissaries soot-smeared and broken. The wounded lay crying.

  She saw out every window in the Skittersill. Her senses filled the air. She held the city in her hand as the Quechal gods transformed their dying faithful into weapons, and as those weapons killed the Wardens and their steeds. The dogfight twisted above, a roil of scales and wings, of razors and rainbows. Bodies fell broken into the fire.

  She saw Chel in their midst, shining like a star, and winged. Elayne heard Tay say the woman’s name, but he could not join her, only watch. She lived, as far as Elayne could see: a human woman winning against all odds, with her patrons’ help. Perhaps Temoc’s people would have their vengeance after all.

  For a few minutes, torn between fire and Craft, she almost believed that. The Couatl broke, fleeing north. More took flight from rooftops around the Skittersill, smaller breeds, built for ranged combat, but Temoc and the angels were fast, hard to imagine a marksman hitting one even with a clear shot.

  The angels gave their fleeing enemies chase.

  Temoc held back at first, and Elayne saw why. The Couatl fled north in a single narrow stream. If this was a true rout they would flee in all directions at once. The gods, flush with sacrificial souls, were being tempted by a target. They took the bait, humanoid weapons darting forth blood-hungry, rejoicing in the strength with which they put their foe to flight.

  Then the Wardens folded their wings at once and dived, and the sky before the Quechal angels rippled, twisted, inverted, and went black with spreading scaly wings, a battleship-broad back, tail long as a highway and thick as a magisterium tree, cavernous jaws with teeth three times the height of a man. Even the eyes were enormous. A ruby glared from the creature’s forehead, supernova bright, and in state at the root of its neck stood the King in Red.

  In her shock, Elayne almost let the Skittersill ignite.

  It was not a dragon.

  Well. It was not a dragon anymore.

  Dragons, in their age, and wisdom, and might, rarely meddled in human affairs. They took sides in the God Wars, when after long decades the struggle finally threatened to crack the egg of the world—lent aid to Craftsmen, then retired once again to their quiet slow empires and millennial games. Some, young and curious, hired themselves out as carriers for air freight, but the elders kept apart.

  But dragons were not sentimental for their dead. The dead were landscape, the dead were for devouring. Humans had some atavistic reluctance to transform their corpses into weapons; dragons had no such qualms, and did not flinch at Craftsmen’s first careful question as to whether they would mind, so much, if humans ran a few experiments with their bodies. And so in death they were reborn—the dead ones lacked the living’s supernatural cleverness, but their immense frame and unique biology, their polymer scales no artificial process could duplicate, their muscles stronger and more durable than any hydraulic system, the bones from which an enterprising engineer could hang a fortune’s worth of weaponry, their colossal lift, and of course the atomic forge within that could power much more than mere fiery
breath, Craftsmen could find use for these.

  Expensive to operate. A thousand souls or so to fund a minute’s combat. But then, war always had been a chance for great powers to play with their most exquisite toys.

  Elayne closed her eyes, and within, between, beneath the scales of the King in Red’s dragon, she saw Craftwork weapons spin to absurd heights of power. And, as the Skittersill angels broke for cover, the guns spoke.

  * * *

  Chel did not wait to understand the shape that emerged from nothing in the sky. Immense, claws, teeth, fangs, nightmare eyes, swallowing up the sun: that was enough. She dove, twisting, forward and down. The godsong split into cacophony as divine minds realigned. She ignored them, and let herself fall.

  A cloud of cold iron fléchettes erupted from the dragon’s wings and filled the air where she’d just been: hundreds of thousands of metal slivers flying at the speed of sound. The others had no time to guard themselves; the gods did that for them by instinct, forging magnetic shields in the air around their servants. But the fléchettes did not ricochet. Glancing off the shields, they darted out, turned, and sped back for a second pass, a third, a fourth. A cloud of tiny knives surrounded her comrades, and some pierced their shields to draw shining blood.

  Chel cut her dive, and began to climb.

  * * *

  Temoc saw the dragon, heard the gods scramble to respond, a dozen different concepts rippling through divine minds that understood the contours of the physical world but barely. Their voices pulsed through his scars, their minds through his:

  —attack—turn—parry—preserve—

  Time, for gods always a confusing and imprecise parameter, dilated out, and they swatted each fléchette away: easy to do when they all came from one direction, but on the second pass—

  —many—hunger—resolve—turn—charge—adjust—iron—

  He ran toward the dragon, trailing footsteps of shadow through ozone-charged air. Gods did not deal well with small things moving quickly, and especially not with cold iron. Swatting each sliver aside would strain their powers and attention. Instead, they charged the angels themselves. The iron shards burst away from the winged lights, straight out in all directions. The risen of Chakal Square flew toward the King in Red atop his war beast, laughing.