The Killing Light

by Myke Cole

  Tone’s voice alone rang out clearly, chanting verses from the Writ, riding through the maelstrom as if the people about him were stalks of grain, bending aside to admit him. He lashed out with his flail, drawing sparks from a devil’s side, ripping some of the scales away from the creature. It lashed out with two arms, but Tone had already dug in his spurs and rode out of range, circling back for another pass.

  “Come on!” Sir Steven had found his wind, was bellowing at the Pilgrim. “We have to run!”

  “No,” Heloise said, knowing that he couldn’t hear her, but past caring, “we will never outrun them now.”

  She raced to Tone, reaching him in two strides and snatching him out of the saddle. His horse shrieked and she bulled it aside.

  “What are you doing?!” he shouted at her. He kicked, twisted, but Heloise had him wedged between her shield arm and the machine’s breastplate, and there was nothing he could do. “Let me go!”

  Heloise turned to the army and shouted so loud that the muscles in her sides cramped. “Into the city! Follow me and live!”

  She turned and raced toward the gates, not waiting to see if the others would follow. She could see the faces of the garrison staring, dumbstruck that the army of devils had been distracted by a rabble of enemies. It didn’t take them long to close ranks and present their pikes at the girl in the war-machine racing toward them. She could hear the bowstrings of the archers behind them stretching taut.

  She gave Tone a squeeze. “Now would be the time to tell them about our arrangement.”

  “We have no arrangement,” the Pilgrim grunted as the lurching machine jostled him.

  “Of course we do,” she said, squeezing in with her shield-arm, crushing him against the machine’s breastplate. “You know, the one where I don’t crush you to paste, and you tell the garrison to let us in?”

  Another squeeze, and Tone was shouting the moment she relented enough to let him draw breath. “Stand aside and let us enter! I am the Emperor’s Own! Make way for the Righteous Hand!”

  The garrison pikemen cast uncertain glances at one another, but held their ranks, points leveled as Heloise came on. It was the two or three remaining Pilgrims who pushed their way into their ranks, yanking on their shoulders and tapping their helmets, prying them apart. At last the pikemen fell back, making room for Heloise to race past them, releasing Tone as she went. He hit the ground running, matching her pace as they moved past the remains of the shattered gate and turned to face back the way they had come.

  Precious few of the army had followed her. None of the Hapti wagons had made it, and Heloise could only see a few of the Traveling People sprinting free of the flailing devils still outside. All the men of her command were with her—her father and Barnard, Sir Steven still leaning hard on Xilyka, Wolfun. They had been close to her when the fighting had started and were saved by their proximity. But most of the Red Lords were out there, somewhere, with the villagers who had sworn themselves to her banner after Lyse. Some streamed past the bewildered pikemen in ones and twos. Heloise could see more through the broken gates, running away from the walls, trying their luck with the devils. She watched as an infantryman in a red tabard tried to race between a devil’s legs, eyes fixed on the gatehouse. He looked as if he might make it, when suddenly the monster dropped onto its knees, crushing him to the ground, then reached back with one of its hands, ripping his head off.

  The creature turned, saw the pikemen milling about uncertainly, the Pilgrims gawking at Heloise and her people among them. It hissed, stalked slowly forward. Some of its kin followed its movements, closing in on the gate. Samson’s levy instincts reacted instantly. “Form up!” he bellowed. “They’re coming again!” He was a villager issuing an order to Imperial troops, but they instantly complied, driven by his serjeant’s voice.

  The last shreds of her army raced past the devils and into the city as the monsters finally tired of chasing the routed villagers and Red Lords’ troops, and turned their attention back to the gatehouse.

  Heloise gaped. There were so few. The rest aren’t dead … we’re just separated. Maybe they’ve escaped. But she had seen the devils’ incredible speed, their terrible numbers.

  She searched the faces of the Traveling People, saw no one she recognized. Florea. She glanced at Xilyka, but if the knife-caster was worried for her mother, she gave no sign. She caught Heloise’s worried glance. “My mother is the strongest among us. If any can escape them, she can.”

  Heloise nodded and scanned the crowd, found Guntar. He’d thrown his mother over his shoulder as he dashed into the city, and gently set her on her feet. She stared at the ruins of the gates, blinking.

  The garrison pikes were trained men, disciplined and efficient, but even they could not match the devils’ speed. They were still desperately trying to re-form when the first of the monsters crashed into them, its six arms flailing like threshing blades, felling the garrison like ripe grain.

  The pikemen tried to fall back by ranks, keeping their points steady, but it was useless. Together, they could at least create a barrier solid enough to present an obstacle, but in ones and twos, they may as well have faced the devils with sharpened broomsticks. Heloise charged at one of the devils in their midst, dropped the machine’s shoulder, and slammed into it. The creature looked up just as she collided with it, its head whipping back, feet leaving the ground. Heloise didn’t wait to see where it landed, taking advantage of the brief reprieve to look back into the city, desperate for an avenue of escape.

  Inside the gatehouse was a broad cobblestone plaza, vast beyond Heloise’s imagination, big enough to fit all of Lyse inside it with room to spare. It was lined with shuttered market stalls, thick curtains drawn across the fronts, bulging from the wares behind. Beyond them were tall row houses, blackened beams crosswise between plaster smoothed over stone. Glass windows were veined with leaded designs—scrolling patterns of scattering flowers or vines bursting with fruit. Broad streets marched off in all directions, deserted now, save for handfuls of soldiers racing into the square with fresh pikes, sheaves of arrows, or beams for the barricade.

  Heloise stared, open-mouthed. The walls above her were nearly empty, the garrison troops racing across the square to join the fight so few. The Imperial capital, the great city that had ruled her all her life, was practically empty. They lost two armies. One to us at Lyse, another to the devils on the road. The Order lies dead outside the walls. There is no one left to fight.

  When Heloise had taken Lyse, the townsfolk had stood in the common, watching as her people came on. Here, the citizens were shut up in their beautiful houses, faces pressed to the windows. Heloise could catch flashes of jewels at heads and throats, bonnets and lace collars. She thought of the muddy lanes and leaking thatch of Lutet, of playing among slopping pigs and tanning pits. The huge houses rising about her were so clean they seemed to glow.

  But they were nothing compared to the palace.

  Of course it was the palace. What else could it be? It rose among the beautiful houses, so lofty and refined that they looked like flies on the flank of a prize horse. It was hewn of the same black stone as the outer wall, but planed so smooth and polished so brightly that it reminded Heloise of a still lake at night, reflecting the moonlight. The spires rose so high that Heloise had to crane her neck to follow them up, and eventually gave up when the machine’s helmet cut off her vision. She lowered her gaze, but not before she saw the gold scrollwork chasing the eaves—the Emperor surrounded by his Palantines, their heads haloed by glowing suns, their hands held palms-outward in the traditional pose, writhing devils crushed beneath their feet.

  And something more.

  A ringwall, topped by high battlements, stone embrasures pierced with arrow slits. And siege engines—huge wooden machines that looked like giant crossbows, straining wooden arms laden with throwing stones. Manned and waiting.

  “You … you saved us,” Tone said. He was pale, his jaw tight.

  “It was madness to stay
out there.”

  “It was,” Tone said, then looked down at his feet. “And none saw it but you. I have been such a fool.”

  “What?” Heloise asked.

  When Tone looked up, his eyes blazed with certainty. “The Emperor’s hand is on you, Heloise. How else could we have fought through to here?”

  Tone sounded so much like Barnard that Heloise felt her skin crawl. Religious men were so determined to make a saint of her. If I made water on my feet you would call it divine providence. But Heloise’s eyes were fixed on the siege engines attached to the ringwall. Tone might be mad, he might be determined to make a Palantine of her, but they both wanted to go in the same direction, at least.

  “To the palace!” she shouted, and started running.

  Xilyka followed her immediately, and she could hear Sir Steven cursing at the sudden movement before he looked up and realized where they were heading. “The siege engines!” he shouted. “Captains, get your…” His voice trailed off as the loss of his army struck home. A motley of infantry and serjeants ran along with him. His knights were gone. There were no captains to order.

  As Heloise drew closer, the tiny remains of the shattered army behind her, she could see giant bolts being loaded, engineers working winches on the machines, lowering them to aim directly at her.

  “The devils, you fools!” she shouted at them. “Not us! The devils!” But her words were lost beneath the war-machine’s roaring engine, the pounding of its metal tread. Arrows whisked past her, a few plinking off the machine’s shoulders. She heard Xilyka curse as the girl dodged aside.

  Heloise heard a shout from behind her, risked a glance back and was rewarded by the sight of the wall of garrison pikemen dissolving. They ran now, abandoning their useless weapons, taking cover in the market stalls or racing down the broad streets. The devils surged through, rushing into the vacant square. Two, twelve, thirty.

  Heloise turned back to the palace steps just as the first of the giant bolts struck mere handspans from the machine’s leg, hitting the cobbled street hard enough to split the stone and lodge quivering in the earth beneath. She could see the engineers loading the next bolt, winching it back. She stared at the cracked stone. The bolt’s head was sharp iron as wide as the machine’s metal helmet, the shaft thick as her arm. The war-machine would not stop it, of that she was certain.

  She turned back as the engineers locked the next bolt in place and trained the siege engine on her. Behind her, she could hear the devils’ eagle shrieks coming closer.

  And then Tone’s voice split the noise. The Pilgrim ran past her, hands cupped over his mouth. “Let us pass! They are with me! Let us pass!”

  Tone. The man who had taken her eye. He could have run, joined his people in the fight for the gate. But here he was, calling for her safety. His gaze was fixed on the massive arching stone doors and the scattering of guards who stood before them. A handful of men in gaudy armor, black chased with gold, the ridiculous false wings worn by the knights at Lyse spreading from their backs, only greater. The huge wooden frames were painted with golden letters proclaiming verses from the Writ, jewels sparkling from the tip of each long feather. They leveled gilded halberds at Heloise, paused at the sight of Tone. So few, Heloise thought. Here now at the palace, the seat of the Emperor, and there is almost no one left to stop us.

  “I am a Holy Brother of the Emperor’s Own!” Tone shouted. “Stand aside and let us enter!”

  “That … that is the heretic,” one of the guards said, gesturing at Heloise with his weapon, “with the hounds of hell behind her.” He swept the weapon down again to indicate the knot of Traveling People, villagers, and Red Lords trailing behind her.

  Tone hammered his flail haft against the halberd’s head, knocking it so hard against the black steps that it rang. “The hounds of hell”—he jerked his chin at the devils—“are behind all of us. We must appeal to the Throne directly. Only the Emperor can save us now.”

  “Heloise!” Wolfun called. “There isn’t much time.”

  She turned. The square was full of devils now. The garrison had given up all hope of fighting them, and fled. The creatures raced toward them, snarling, arms spread, slowing as they closed, the stalking behavior that Heloise had seen them repeat when they felt confident their prey was helpless and cornered. The last of the army had gathered around her, scores winnowed out from thousands. Most were wounded, lacking all semblance of order. She could feel them edging backward up the steps. They were broken and terrified. They wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Heloise moved up beside Wolfun and Barnard. Xilyka joined her. Sir Steven had found his wind and stood with them, Samson at his side. “If you are going to speak to the Emperor,” Heloise called to Tone, “then you should hurry. I will do my best to give you time.”

  “That is poor comfort,” Sir Steven muttered, then called to his men again. A few of them came forward to join the line at the base of the steps, but most backed further up behind them, toward the huge doors.

  “It is all the comfort we will get. Our faith is in the Emperor, and His in us,” she quoted from the Writ, “and He will be a mighty fortress and the bane of our enemies.”

  “Yea, though mine enemy is vast beyond counting, ten thousand before me, and twenty thousand behind,” Barnard added.

  “Yea, though my foe bears a glittering sword, and his countenance is terrible to behold. He shall not come nigh to me, or to my family,” Samson said.

  “For a mighty fortress is my Emperor, and none shall pierce His walls,” Heloise finished. “Go, Tone. Go and do what you can.”

  A bolt shot down from the battlements, slamming into one of the devils’ shoulders and sending the creature spinning before it fell to the ground. A moment later two huge stones arced past them. The first flew wide, bouncing harmlessly across the square before crushing an abandoned cart. The second struck a devil full in the face, sending the creature staggering back into the monsters behind it. The devils paused, wary of the engines on the palace parapets and Heloise in her machine.

  “No,” Tone shouted to her. “The Emperor has sent you to me for this, of that I am sure. I do not know His plan, but I will see it through. We go in, all of us, together.”

  “You do not wear the red,” the guard shouted, raising his halberd again. “No mere Pilgrim takes audience before the Sacred Throne.”

  “He does when the veil is rent!” Tone shouted.

  “He does no—” The guard’s words were cut short as Tone hammered the flail haft into his head, knocking his helmet askew and sending him clattering down the steps. The guard beside him had no time to react before Tone reversed the weapon, bringing the head into a rising loop that caught him in his stomach with such force that Heloise could see his breastplate dent. The man pitched forward onto his knees gasping for breath, his helmet slipping off his head to tumble down the steps until it was stopped by his comrade’s body. The rest of the guards backed away as Tone raised the flail over his head.

  “The veil. Is. Rent. I will appeal to the Throne if I must kill each of you to do it. The Emperor sent this girl and her people to me. They saved me, they brought me here, and they are coming in with me. Now are you going to open the gates, or are you going to die?”

  They did neither. Their weapons rebounded off the stone and they ran, their false wings shaking as they vaulted the stone balustrade and disappeared around one of the buttresses.

  “Heloise!” Tone shouted to her.

  She turned, leapt up the steps, wedged the corner of her shield into the gap between the stone doors. They were the biggest doors she had ever seen, huge slabs of stone bigger than even the Imperial shrine in her village. She was shocked at how easily they opened. They swung smoothly, so silent that she would have believed they had not moved if she hadn’t been able to see it, the darkness beyond so complete it swallowed the light.

  More bolts were raining down among the devils, more stones. Their stalking advance had broken apart, their arms raised over their h
eads. Two more knelt, clawed hands covering wounds. One braved the hail of missiles and rushed toward them, and Heloise leapt from the stairs, hammering down with her knife-hand. The devil turned the blade aside with a sweep of its hand, but the weight of the machine staggered it back, and it wrapped its arms around her to keep itself upright. Heloise felt the machine tipping forward, kicked out a foot to hold herself upright. It came down hard on the devil’s ankle, and she could hear a crunch that told her she had hurt it, followed by a scream so loud it made her eyes water. She jerked her elbow back, ripping the knife-hand free of the devil’s grip, then sent it swinging up into the monster’s side. She felt the hard scales resist it, then the engine drive harder to compensate, rewarded by the feeling of the hard surface giving way and a second scream, near silent now, barely audible over the ringing in Heloise’s ears. She brought the knife down and up, again and again, and again, until at last she felt the devil’s hold on her slacken, and she shoved it away, turning back to the palace.

  Her people were streaming up the steps, disappearing into the hungry darkness that held like a curtain across the open doors, forbidding the daylight to enter. Xilyka and her father were the last of them to race through, and Tone stood beside the open doors, waving Heloise in. “Come on!”

  Heloise leapt up the steps, slowing just enough to let Tone run in, and then she was inside, the cool darkness swallowing her. She could see nothing, but heard Tone straining at one of the doors. She ran to him, felt with her shield until she found the door’s edge, and slammed it shut. The devils were nearly upon them as she found the other and pushed it closed. She braced the machine against the doors, expecting to feel the weight of the devils at any moment, to hear their shrieking and feel the weight of their numbers as they tried to push their way inside.

  But there was nothing. Whatever force forbade the light to enter forbade sound as well. There was only the faintest hint of the battle outside, the quiet darkness all around them broken only by the panting of her people, the gentle puffing of the idle war-machine.