Daughter of Independence

by Simon Brown

  ‘Well, answer, you ugly bastard!’

  A hand fell on its shoulder and then immediately withdrew as if it had touched a hot brand. The creature twisted on its hips, grabbed one guard around the neck and snapped it, and lunged with its jaws at the face of the other. When both guards had stopped moving it picked up one of their spears and broke it trying to shatter the glass of the dome. It needed something heavier, bulkier to smash through. It thought of the guards’ bodies.

  *

  Quenion heard a great rumble come from the sea, and soon after a great crash and splintering from the harbour. She ran to the window in her room. Two of the Hamilayan warships were rolling on their anchors, and she saw planks of wood and some sailors floating in the water nearby. The sailors were not moving. Out in the bay, too far for Hamilayan longgons to reach, were four warships flying the Kydan flag. It seemed to Quenion a long time before there was another broadside, but when it came she had to stop herself clapping her hands with glee. A bank of cloud pushed against the sea, and she saw dozens of small black balls whirling through the air. They seemed to be moving so slowly, but when they passed between her line of sight and the eastern end of the harbour she could see just how much velocity they had. They arced gracefully into more Hamilayan ships. Smoke poured up from one of the transports, and she assumed it had held gonblack or grain or hemp. Another ship, one of the smaller ones, started listing to starboard, swinging down and around on its anchor line.

  She watched desperate crew try to cut loose from lines and tethers. Longgons were being hauled in for loading. One adventurous captain had even ordered his ship’s sails to be unfurled.

  When the Kydan ships fired their third broadside she started tapping her foot on the floor, and was concentrating so hard on the counting that she did not really notice the damage done this time around.

  The fourth broadside occurred on the count of forty. Faster than she had thought, then.

  The ship that had its sails out was hit below the waterline. A great plume of spray shot into the air. A short while later it started to roll. Crew leaped off the deck. The ship continued rolling until it was upside down, its dark hull bobbing on the surface. Quenion was surprised how deep the hull was, and how encrusted with barnacles. She had no idea a ship’s bottom could be so filthy.

  *

  ‘It’s day,’ Kadburn said dumbly.

  ‘I told you it was Lerena’s realm. Nothing is the same here as it is on the other side of the dome.’

  Mycom, Galys and Kadburn stood at the top of the staircase, the wire door swinging shut behind them.

  ‘And there’s no dome,’ Kadburn added.

  ‘Let’s get . . .’ Galys licked her lips. ‘Let’s get started.’

  Slowly, because the steps were so slippery with mould, they made their way down. Galys noticed that at some point the staircase became a tree. When they reached the ground she looked at her hands in the greenshaded light. Her skin looked slightly orange. In the distance, and at what seemed a great distance, they saw the edge of a magnificent forest, its canopy lost high in the sky, too high for her to see the end of it. In between were other trees with lower canopies, and more trees below them.

  ‘We had best get started,’ Mycom said. ‘Time passes at a different rate here than outside, much slower I think, but it takes a long while to reach the clearing.’

  ‘The clearing?’

  ‘Where the empress waits for me. Or, sometimes, where I have to wait for the empress.’

  The air was pleasantly warm, the scents from the forest almost sweet. As they drew closer they heard bird song. And other sounds.

  ‘What was that?’ Kadburn asked, his hand over his scramasax.

  ‘I have no idea. And I have no wish to find out. Although I think it is possible there is only one monster in this forest, and that is Lerena herself.’

  ‘Why do I think you mean that literally?’ Galys said.

  ‘I hope you don’t have to see for yourself.’

  As they walked by the first trees they heard something in the forest moving parallel with them, something large enough and strong enough to break branches.

  ‘Oh good,’ Mycom said, ‘she’s hurrying to meet us.’

  *

  Salo Mikhel stood in front of the burning building, still holding his lanterns in his two hands. Locals started gathering around him, partly because he was in uniform, and partly because he had the air of someone who knew what he was doing.

  ‘You have seen the monsters,’ he said to them.

  Some nodded. Others simply looked at him wide-eyed. ‘Get lanterns, braziers, torches, anything that burns,’ he told them. He nodded at the burning building. ‘Only fire stops them, as some of you have found out.’ When no one moved, he snapped, ‘Hurry!’ and they scattered to find anything that would carry a flame.

  There were shadows at the end of the street, shuffling shapes. They were moving away from the fire. Mikhel ran after them. When they noticed him they stopped, even moved towards him, but when they saw the lanterns they backed away. Too late. Mikhel hurled one of the lanterns at their feet. The glass smashed, the oil spilled and flames leaped over both of them. They screamed, withered where they stood.

  It was a start, Mikhel thought. It was a start.

  The locals started coming back with all sorts of combustible material. He smashed another of the lanterns and they lit their torches and braziers and old clothes wound onto the end of sticks.

  ‘Every building has to burn,’ he told them grimly. ‘The city has to burn. To the ground. And everything in it. Move in pairs, one sets fire to buildings, the other keeps an eye out for the monsters. Go. Remember, burn everything.’

  37

  Rodin knew the only way to stave off defeat was to be methodical. He started with one platoon, using the flat of his hanger to bring them into line. Once there he ordered them to load their firegons. If they had no firegons they were ordered to get one from the dead.

  Then another platoon. The same procedure. Discipline. Purpose. He was joined by a young ensign who copied him. Soon a whole company was holding steady in the middle of the storm, and like a pebble dropped in a pond, order rippled out from it, directed and shaped by Rodin and more and more officers. Soon the Hamilayans were returning fire, and the enemy was so close, so confident, that for the first time his soldiers were delivering casualties instead of receiving them. When he had two columns re-established he ordered one of them to fix bayonets. The sound of thousands of steel blades sliding into their sockets rose above the irregular crackling of firegons, and an unnatural pause fell over the battlefield.

  ‘Charge!’ Rodin cried, and the company surged forward, screaming for revenge, at last able to come to grips with their foe.

  *

  ‘What is this place?’ Atemann gasped.

  ‘It is our place,’ Paimer answered, looking over Lerena’s creation. ‘This is what happens when you serve the Sefid.’

  ‘Serve the Sefid?’ Beremore sounded offended.

  ‘I don’t think it truly ever served us,’ Paimer said. ‘I think we have been allowed to use it in small, insignificant ways. All the time we knew there was more there; all we had to do was make bigger sacrifices. No one ever really asked who we were sacrificing to; we just assumed the Sefid was inert, like clay, and the sacrifices we made nothing more than tools used to shape the clay. I think the Sefid has been using us the way a sailing ship uses the wind, to travel to a far harbour.’ He took a deep breath. ‘This harbour; this world.’

  Beremore did not know what to say, but Bayer’s face came alive with intelligence, and said, ‘I’m home. At last, I’m home.’

  Paimer patted his shoulder. ‘Yes, cousin. You’re home. This has been made for us. This is what we were called to.’

  ‘If we were called to it,’ Atemann said uncertainly, ‘why am I still so afraid?’

  Paimer sighed. ‘Let us find out,’ he said, and started down the spiral staircase.

  *

 
Quenion could not believe that four ships acting alone could cause so much destruction. Almost the entire Hamilayan fleet lay splintered, broken, sunk or battered to the waterline. A few of the smaller transports were left, that was all, and the harbour was so clogged with wrecks she did not think they would be able to get into open water. The foreshore had largely escaped damage, although one warehouse had a hole in its roof and one crane had toppled over on its side.

  The whole time she had watched the battle – the massacre, she corrected herself – she noticed that the smaller ship did not actually take part in any broadside. Its task had been much more directed. On two occasions a Hamilayan ship had managed to cut its anchor, unfurl its sails and escape into open water, but both times they had been headed off by the schooner; one was battered into submission and struck its flags, and was now anchored behind the main Kydan force, its crew in chains on the deck, while the other was forced to beach itself, its crew scrambling ashore in case the schooner fired at it until it broke up.

  Quenion did not know if this was enough to end the war, but she thought it was a good start.

  *

  ‘Well, what have we here?’ the empress asked.

  Galys spun on her heel. There, at the edge of the forest, was Lerena. Looking like Lerena. Galys had half expected her to look half-tree half-lizard from the way Mycom had talked about her and from the sounds she and Kadburn had heard in the forest. She decided they must have been caused by something else, perhaps something that really was half-tree and half-lizard.

  Galys, despite herself, bowed from the neck. ‘Your Majesty, I am very pleased to meet you again.’

  Lerena regarded her indifferently. Galys realised she had not been recognised. ‘Chancellor, what is the meaning of this?’

  ‘To be perfectly honest, your Majesty, I have no idea. I am here because you called me.’

  ‘And why are they here?’ she asked, pointing first at Galys and then at Kadburn. She frowned slightly when her gaze rested on the Beloved, but there was no sign of easy recognition.

  ‘That is something you will have to ask them yourself.’

  ‘I am too busy for visitors,’ she said. ‘They must go. Chancellor, we have urgent business to discuss.’

  ‘Your Majesty, we have come a long, long way to see you,’ Galys said. She noticed Kadburn casually walking away from her and Mycom to get behind the empress.

  ‘Then you must carry your disappointment a long way back,’ she said.

  Just a few moments more, Galys thought. Kadburn’s hand was already over the scramasax in his belt.

  ‘I have something of yours,’ Galys said, and drew out the oilskin pouch that carried the birth chain.

  ‘You could not possibly have anything of mine.’

  ‘But only see, your Majesty,’ Galys replied, and started opening the pouch. Just then a young man ran into the clearing, his expression terrified. He stopped when he saw he was not alone, looked around desperately and saw Lerena.

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ he cried, ‘help me!’

  Galys thought the man was asking the empress for help, then saw the way he stared at Lerena and understood he wanted help because of her.

  He is one of the sacrifices! she thought.

  ‘I’ve been hunting you for half a day!’ Lerena cried delightedly. ‘And here you are, coming to me!’

  ‘No!’ the man cried, turned on his heel and fled the way he had come, disappearing in the forest.

  Lerena screeched like a bird and ran after him. Galys had never seen anyone move so fast. She was gone before she or Kadburn could do anything. Kadburn recovered first. He looked down at the grass in the clearing and waved Galys over. ‘Look at this,’ he said, pointing. Galys looked down at the ground. From where Lerena had stood to where she had run into the forest were the prints not of bare feet but of two sets of large claws.

  *

  Gos cursed his own impetuosity. Because of his impatience they had almost lost everything. In the excitement of the chase he had let his infantry get too close to the Hamilayan columns, and when one of them had charged his own soldiers had scattered in fright and panic. They would have been overwhelmed, run down and butchered, if not for the quick thinking of the dragoons. They had galloped into the rear of the Hamilayan column, hacking away with their sabres until the enemy stopped their advance, pulled out their bayonets, and loaded their firegons with ball and gonblack. Only then did the dragoons withdraw, some of them falling to the first volley. But it had given Gos and Velan and Lannel the time they needed to reorganise their own troops. Soon they were delivering accurate long-range fire into the Hamilayans again, forcing them to retreat once more to the river. When the danger was over Gos went to the dragoons to personally thank Ames Westaway for saving the day, but could not find him.

  A captain, a young native Kydan, told him that the master of horse had fallen in the first charge earlier in the morning.

  Gos swallowed. That was a loss he had not wanted to bear. ‘Who . . . then who ordered the last charge?’

  ‘I did, Commander. I knew it was what Ames would have wanted.’

  There was something in the captain’s tone of voice and informality that made Gos ask him if he had known Ames apart from the dragoons.

  ‘He is – was – my brother-in-law, sir. I am the brother of Canna, his wife.’ He cast down his gaze. ‘My family thought of Ames as truly one of us; we will grieve his loss.’

  ‘Your family will not be alone in its grieving,’ Gos said heavily, then nodded to the captain. ‘Well, you are my new master of horse.’

  *

  When Lerena returned she was wiping blood from her mouth and adjusting her neck, which made cricking sounds. Without preamble she said, ‘Malus Mycom, the whole empire is in danger.’

  The chancellor looked as if he wanted to throw up. He swallowed uneasily and hurried to her side. ‘What is it, your Majesty? What so disturbs you?’

  ‘Darkness.’

  ‘Darkness?’

  ‘Yes. It is already here. Just outside. It is trying to come in. I don’t know if it can be stopped. Yunara says there is nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘Can you tell me what form this darkness takes, your Majesty?’

  ‘Oblivion.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Galys stepped forward. ‘Perhaps I can help.’

  Lerena barely glanced at her. ‘Are you still here? I hardly think you can help.’

  Kadburn had again started circling around the empress.

  ‘You did not let me show you what I had, your Majesty,’ Galys said, and again pulled out the oilskin pouch protecting the birth chain.

  ‘I am not interested. I have pressing matters of state to attend to.’ She suddenly twisted on her feet and glared at Kadburn. ‘I am going to disembowel you with my foot if you come one step closer. And don’t think I can’t.’

  For the first time since she had known Kadburn, Galys saw a flicker of fear cross his face. She was not surprised. Lerena’s words had made her hands shake violently.

  Lerena seemed interested in them all of a sudden. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Galys instinctively knew she had to think of something neutral, something unrelated to their purpose in Omeralt. The sea. Her childhood. The university. Her time on the frontier. Kydan. Kitayra –

  ‘Kitayra Albyn!’ Lerena cried triumphantly. ‘That is why you are here? No, no, that is not it, that is not it at all. You are here to . . .’ Lerena’s face showed amazement. ‘. . . you are here to kill me!’ The empress began to laugh, a high, sweet, childlike sound. ‘You two poor orphans, a strategos and a Beloved, are here to kill me?’ The laughter died in her throat and she glared again at Kadburn. ‘A Beloved!’ she roared, and the sound was definitely not childlike.

  ‘I eat Beloveds,’ Lerena hissed. ‘I use them. Sacrifice them. Desiccate them. Shrivel them. Empty them. Chop them into small pieces. Skin them and flay them. I burn them, damn you! And then I eat them all up!’ She moved towards Kadburn. He
stared at her in turn, paralysed.

  ‘Run, Kadburn,’ Galys cried. ‘For the Sefid’s sake, run!’

  Lerena spun around to face Galys. ‘Yes. For the Sefid’s sake.’ She smiled. A pretty smile. ‘What have you got in that pouch of yours?’

  Galys hid the pouch behind her back, knowing it was useless even as she did so.

  ‘You said it was mine. Ah, a birth chain! And it is mine! Well, keep it, my lovely. I will make it burn for you.’

  Then two things happened at the same time. The pouch in Galys’s hands burst into flames and she shouted in pain. And a crack opened in the sky above them.

  *

  Rodin was thinking about what to do next. The whole campaign was not a complete failure, he knew, although he doubted Lerena would see it that way. He had at least secured a base in the New Land which would prove invaluable in the future conquest of the continent. Although the enemy had new and devastating firegons, there were tactics which could be employed to overcome them, as he had demonstrated.

  All he had to do was ensure he got back to Sayenna with enough men to hold the town for six more months. That was all. Simple.

  He felt his left leg move back of its own accord and, curious, glanced down. Part of his hip was gone. Blood spurted out of the hole. Pumped. He put his hand over the wound but the blood kept on spilling out.

  If he could just get back to Sayenna, everything would be all right. It was the last thought he ever had.

  *

  All in the clearing looked up.

  Lerena could not believe what she was seeing. A great chasm had appeared in her world, as black as midnight, running from the centre of the sky all the way down to . . .

  The dome. Lerena had almost forgotten there was a dome. But now there was a hole in it, a hole made by something that wanted to get through.

  She looked up into the sky again. Except for the crack it was still daylight.

  ‘You imagined the world,’ Yunara said. ‘Like us, it cannot truly be destroyed. Just fractured.’