The Paladin Caper

by Patrick Weekes

  A blast of liquid flame seared the morning sky as fire ripped into the airship docked next door.

  “Sorry,” Kail said, and walked to the next flamecannon as the cries started. He charged that one, confirmed, and fired again. Another bolt of flame ripped into the airship, setting rigging ablaze and leaving the hull smoldering.

  “This kind of thing happens,” Kail said, walking to the third flamecannon, “when you mess with my mom.”

  “Hey!” came a cry from down the deck as Kail fired again. “What the hell are you—hey!” Another guard ran at him. Down on the ground below, Kail heard people yelling and fumbling with the fallen gangplank.

  “Should probably check the safeties, hunh?” Kail called as the guard closed, and for just a moment, the man’s face showed uncertainty. “That thing went off easier than your mother.” Kail kicked him in the crotch, punched the guard as he staggered, kicked him in the crotch again, and slammed an elbow into the back of his head as he folded.

  The airship next door was fully aflame from the third shot, and Kail walked back toward the first flamecannon, which ought to have charged by then. He had almost reached it when the gangplank slammed back into place.

  As footsteps clattered on the ramp, Kail yanked a safety pin free from the flamecannon’s housing, tossed it aside, did the same with another pin, and pulled the weapon’s main system back from the hull with a grunt of effort. Pivoting on his heel, he turned it around so that it was aimed at the gangplank.

  A flamecannon wasn’t meant to fire when removed from its housing. The crystals that powered the cannon were even built into the housing itself, so that removal rendered the flamecannon useless, unless some idiot had already charged the flamecannon before removing it, still live, from the housing.

  “Clear,” Kail said in a completely normal voice, and fired.

  The gangplank, along with a lot of the railing and a fair portion of the hull around it, exploded into roiling flame. The flamecannon kicked back and slammed Kail to the deck, and he rolled with it, got back to his feet, and walked over to the control console. Down on the ground, people yelled and shouted, something exploded with a good solid whump and a lot of crashing wood, and a giant squealing alarm started up.

  “Had to get the ancients’ attention, Kail,” he said, kicking the bottom of the console and knocking a plate loose. “Needed to send them a message, Kail.” He wrenched the plate free, dropped to his knees, and looked through the crystals inside.

  A year ago, he wouldn’t have known what any of the maze of glowing crystals did. Now, he looked at the array, saw what he needed, and reached in to pull them free.

  They burned as he touched them, because only an idiot would handle crystals from the control console while the console was active, and Kail grimaced, tucked his fingers into his jacket, and used that to yank the crystals out. It was still hot, but it was “ow, damn it, put your fingers in cold water later” hot as opposed to “instantaneous flinch away,” and Kail was motivated.

  “Everyone except the trackers has left the airship,” Hessler’s voice said in his ear. “Everyone at the port seems to be headed your way, in fact. I’m not sure if that was your plan—”

  “Enh.” Kail pulled out another crystal and tossed it aside. The console beeped a warning. Kail sat up and overrode it. Grappling hooks sailed up over the railing, caught, and went taut.

  “—but Dairy is ready. The trackers are using the control console. It looks like they’re going to take off themselves. How soon can you be here?”

  Kail stood up, flexed his burned fingers, and walked to the nearest still-functional flamecannon. “I will be there,” he said, “in ninety-one seconds.”

  “That’s an oddly specific . . . Oh,” Hessler’s voice said as Kail yanked the safety pins out, wincing at the pressure on his burned fingers. “Do you think that maybe you’ve distracted them enough already?”

  “Refresh my memory, Hessler.” Kail hauled the flamecannon from its housing, pivoted, and aimed it straight up at the balloon overhead. “What made you start selling those illegal charms that got you kicked out of the wizard school?”

  “I needed to pay for my mother’s burial,” Hessler’s voice said quietly.

  “You see where I’m going with this?” Kail asked, and without waiting for an answer, he fired the flamecannon.

  Without its barrier crystals in place, the balloon was defenseless. The blast ripped a hole clean through the material, and the daemon inside shrieked at an inhuman pitch.

  “Least it doesn’t sound like Jyelle this time.” As mustard-yellow tentacles began to tear their way from the balloon, Kail took off his leather scout’s jacket, jogged to the nearest grappling cable, jumped over the railing, looped his jacket over the cable, and used the sleeves as makeshift handles to slide down the cable to the ground, where he plowed into a soldier and rolled in the dirt.

  The soldier he’d slammed into didn’t get up. Another nearby soldier was coming at him, though. Kail turned, grabbed the man’s hands as he went for the blade at his waist, head-butted him in the face, grabbed the back of his head, and smashed his elbow into it two or three times.

  He looked around quickly. Everyone else was looking at the smoke, the fire, or the wind-daemon that was shrieking and tearing its way free from the balloon.

  Kail pulled his jacket back on. “Somebody get on those fires!” he shouted over the yell of the alarm. “Keep everyone back!”

  Waving and gesturing like everyone else, Kail walked toward the small airship at the end of the dock. Half of the airfield was in flames by now, and that was only going to get worse with the wind-daemon free and wreaking havoc on its own. Everyone was yelling and running and waving, except by the small airship, which was now incredibly alone. The underballoon lights were on. It was powered up and prepared to depart. The gangplank was still in place, though.

  “Ready when you are,” Hessler’s voice said in his ear, and Kail nodded. A moment later, the air around Kail turned blurry, and an illusion of him began running up the gangplank. Hessler had even thought of the little sound the wood made when it bent under his weight. Kail followed his own illusion up the gangplank, stepping lightly.

  Unlike the warship, this airship was small and built for speed. It was about the same size as his own sadly destroyed airship, Iofegemet, who had sacrificed herself for the team just as everyone had been starting to acknowledge Kail’s choice of name. The bony woman that Tern had said was a troll stood at the control console, the dwarf-thing that was apparently a scorpion stood at the top of the gangplank, and the ogre stood guard over Kail’s mother, who was seated, hands and feet shackled, in the middle of the deck.

  “Binjamet?” his mother cried, looking at the illusion of him who was a few steps ahead.

  “No,” said the scorpion thing that looked like a dwarf, and lunged forward. “Trick.” A crystal stinger lashed out from the folds of its cloak, not parting the garment but slashing through as though the cloak were an illusion, and slammed into the illusion of Kail.

  Kail had seen this happen before. It usually resulted in the person who punched the illusion stumbling forward off balance.

  This time, the illusion flew through the air, still looking like it was standing in place, and then abruptly flickered and vanished.

  Behind Kail, Hessler grunted and hit the ground, and the cloak around Kail disappeared.

  “No illusions,” Kail muttered. “Got it. Dairy!”

  He leaped up the gangplank, kicked the stinger to one side, and stomped hard on where the thing’s head ought to be. His foot went through the folds of the cloak and hit something that felt like rock or bone, and the scorpion squealed.

  “Kill him,” said the bony woman, and Kail grabbed the stinger as it darted back at him, catching it on the weird glowing sac just behind the crystal tip. It flailed in his grasp, and then rocky claws clamped onto his boots, and the deck slid out from under him.

  He hit the deck hard, rolled, and saw the stinger t
ear through the wood where he had lain. He kicked out, caught the scorpion in what was probably its face—and it was a scorpion now, a very large one with lumpy bits on its head and down its back that glowed softly.

  “Fool,” the scorpion hissed.

  “Distraction,” Kail muttered back, and that was when Dairy, who had come over the far railing on a stolen grappling hook, punched the troll lady hard enough to smash her through the railing and off of the airship.

  “Binjamet!” his mother shouted, struggling with her chains. “Bin, be careful! It’s a trap!”

  “I know, Mom!” The glowing bits on the back of the scorpion’s head pulsed, and some kind of yellowish gas oozed out. Kail rolled away, covering his face. His eyes and skin stung, and he blinked hard as he got back to his feet.

  The scorpion scuttled forward, and then a brilliant flash of light slammed into it and sent it flying across the deck.

  “I believe that you interact with illusions as though they are physically tangible,” Hessler said, hanging from the railing with a pale face but a raised hand, “and I thought to myself, I wonder how that works?” The scorpion got back to its many scuttling feet, and a glowing hammer materialized in the air and slammed down onto it. “As it turns out, it works very well.” Hessler raised a hand, and the hammer swept back up into the air, ready to come down again.

  The ogre caught the illusionary hammer in one great hand and punched it hard with the other. The illusion popped, and Hessler staggered to one side and slammed to the deck, eyes rolling back into his head.

  “No!” Dairy grabbed the ogre by the arm and pulled her around. The ogre looked surprised, but not as surprised as when Dairy punched her and sent her staggering back.

  While Dairy and the ogre traded blows, Kail ran to his mother, still wiping his eyes. She shook her head. “You knew it was a trap, stupid boy! Why did you come?”

  “Shut up, Mom.” He pulled Iofecyl from his sleeve and went to work on the locks keeping her chained to the deck.

  His mother’s big face glared down at him, age lines adding to her scowl. “They said you’re a criminal again. They said—”

  “Really?” One of the locks snapped open. “Really, the ogre and the scorpion and the troll lady said I was a bad person, and you’re taking their word for it?”

  Something grabbed his wrist, and Kail tried to break the hold, but it was like a snake or a rope or something, and as he turned, he saw that it was the troll lady, her long fingers and arm stretched impossibly so that they coiled around his arm, and it did not so much hurt as it felt wrong, and the muscles in his arm refused to respond as he struggled.

  Her other arm reached for Kail’s head.

  A heavy iron shackle caught the troll in the face.

  “Did I say”—Kail’s mother slammed the shackles across the troll’s knee, and the troll screeched and stumbled—“that I”—the shackles swung up and smashed into the troll’s chin, and the troll dropped to her knees—“believed them?” The shackles came down with crushing force on the back of the troll’s head, and the troll hit the deck and did not move.

  Kail’s mother turned to him. “You are my son. If they want you, they come through me.”

  He coughed, worked Iofecyl into the last lock, and snapped the shackles from her wrists. “Thanks, Mom.”

  The ogre stumbled back from a blow, and she went through the console as Dairy shoved her, as though she were the illusion. Dairy slammed into the console hard, and the ogre stepped around and clapped him on the side of the head. The kid went down, crashed into the railing, and didn’t move.

  Kail put himself between the ogre and his mother. “You wanted me? You got me. Let my mother go, and we do this here and now.”

  “Not a murderer,” the ogre said, coming toward him with fists raised.

  “No, you’re someone who goes after the families of your enemies.” Kail stood his ground. Behind him, his mother got out of the way. “You’re a monster, and I say that as somebody who’s got a dark fey and a death priestess on his team.” He raised his own fists, rolled out his shoulders, and snarled, “I don’t know if things like you even have mothers, but if they do, yours wasn’t worth my time.”

  He lunged forward as the ogre roared, and his fist slammed into her and through her, and Kail slid through her body as though she were a curtain of cool water.

  Had he not seen her do her trick with the control console, this would have surprised him.

  As it was, the console had been what he was aiming for the whole time. His lunge brought him to it, and he hit three buttons and thumbed the control crystal.

  The airship leaped forward, snapping its moorings. Kail stumbled, Kail’s mother stumbled, and the railing slid through the ogre as though she were nothing more than an illusion, leaving her hovering in empty space as the airship bounced off the service station wall, slammed into the top of the fence, and soared wildly through the public port, leaving a lot of yelling and screaming behind it.

  Off in the distance, the ogre roared as she finally fell to the ground. Kail looked to his mother and saw that she was clinging to the chair she’d been shackled to. When she saw him looking her way, she shook her head.

  “You idiot boy!” she yelled. “You are going to get yourself killed one of these days!”

  “Maybe, Mom.” Kail sank back against the console. “Not today, though.”

  “If you’ve got all these crazy things trying to hunt you down, Binjamet, you have more important things to do than come see your mother.” She shook her head. “I would have been fine at the Cleaners.”

  “That’s the best part, Mom.” Kail grinned. “This whole bit was actually a distraction.”

  Twelve

  WESTTEICH STOOD ON the dock at Heaven’s Spire, waiting for the airship that would bring the bait up to him.

  He had arrived the night before to make preparations. The Cleaners, site of Loch’s first big public escape, had been checked and rechecked, and any prisoner Loch knew removed to another facility. The streets had been swept for charms.

  Families. It always came down to families. For the strong-minded, family was a strength, a sign of good breeding and a trust that crossed generations. For the simple, it was a gap in the armor. Those who refused to see the world as it truly was could never make the hard choice to let something happen to family.

  Westteich was enjoying the company of the ancients, who were in no way simple or weak of mind. Lesaguris was in fact here, still wearing his chiseled blond nobleman and smiling contentedly as he watched Westteich work. Westteich took a breath of the cool morning air and tried not to look too anxious. Mister Slant was next to him, looking around as though a little confused by the docks.

  “The puppeteers have done a great job with the new information rollout,” said Mister Slant, “just a great job. It’s a little tricky balancing these crime stories with news of the Festival of Excellence, though. I’d really like to go for a more positive spin if that’s something we can manage.”

  “Ideally, we capture Loch and her team,” said Westteich, “and you go back to your normal reports right away.”

  Mister Slant blinked at him as though just remembering that he was there. “Yes, right, that’s certainly something we could do.”

  “You know,” said Lesaguris, “it’s entirely possible that Loch and her little team of thieves will wait until Binjamet duQuaille’s mother is in custody at the Cleaners.”

  Westteich smiled. “It is, my lord. But I don’t think so. And neither do you.”

  “Don’t I?” Lesaguris asked, not looking over. He had his hands linked behind his back, and his black coat flared in the wind.

  “You’re not the kind of man who wastes time,” Westteich said confidently. “You wouldn’t be here unless you thought, as I do, that Loch would make her move before the mother is moved to the Cleaners.”

  “Fair point.” Lesaguris nodded. “Now, tell me why I think that.”

  Westteich took another lungful of cool morn
ing air and matched Lesaguris’s stance, linking his own hands behind his back. “This Loch isn’t stupid. She has a noble upbringing, an education, even a distinguished military career. But you and I have both crossed swords with her, and I think you’ve seen the same thing I did.” He grinned. “She has an impressive minute-to-minute game. Back her into a corner, and she will go right through you, no matter how she has to do it. But look at her long-term planning, and you see the wasted potential. She’s an Urujar and a woman, and she’s angry about it, my lord. She can’t work within the system, she can’t take the time to let the game play out, and she can’t accept the simple facts of how the world works.” Westteich shook his head. “It’s a pity, because she could have been so much more, if only she cared about things other than the color of her own skin.”

  Lesaguris smiled. “All of that is one reason, Westteich,” he said, and as Westteich let out a small relieved breath, he added, “and the other reason is that according to the message I just received on the band, Loch’s people broke the mother out of custody down on Ros-Oanki fifteen minutes ago.”

  Westteich executed a mental pivot that impressed even himself. “I knew trusting Arikayurichi’s trackers was a mistake, but I wanted to give them a chance to prove me wrong. I take full responsibility for their failure, my lord, and if you believe it’s necessary to have them killed, I can’t really argue with you. What’s important now is what we’ve learned.”

  Lesaguris’s smile broadened. “And what have we learned?”

  “That everything we’ve been doing is right,” Westteich said without hesitation, making direct eye contact and nodding as he went on. “I was right about how Loch would take immediate action, and about how personal connections would be a useful tool against her. You were right to be skeptical about our normal forces’ ability to react to threats of this nature. We need to adjust individual stratagems, of course, but with what we’ve learned here, we should only be more confident now that our next steps will be successful.”