People of the City

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  The beast was quiet. Right now, they both wanted the same things. Justice. Vengeance. Death.

  Liora was quiet. The part of his mind that served the Brotherhood was quiet. Drummed out for the moment by his rage, by his purity of purpose.

  He heard a scream. A scream he knew.

  Driving his knife into the throat of the zealot leaping at him, he looked to see another group of zealots cornering a handful of people. Asti’s people. Missus Hoskins and her granddaughter. Almer Cort and Doc Gelson. Jared Scall, trying to hold the zealots off with that old army mace he always carried. And Kimber.

  All the saints would cry and the sinners laugh over what Asti would do if they hurt Kimber.

  Asti tore his way to them, not caring what he had to fight through to reach them. One of the beasts jumped at him, all teeth and claws. Asti didn’t even pause. One knife in its belly, another in its heart, he pushed it down to the ground. He barely even noticed it had gotten a piece of his arm. That didn’t matter.

  Five more steps, he was on the zealots threatening his friends and neighbors. With quick swipes of his knives—heart, neck, eye, kidney—he dispatched the zealots.

  Kimber dove in on him, grabbing him in a warm embrace. No fear of him, of the slaughter he was capable of, of the blood he was covered with. Nothing but gratitude and grace.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Are you?” she countered. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Nothing that matters,” he said. He looked to Almer and the others. “You need to get out of here.”

  “Not sure where,” Gelson said.

  “Get in the church,” Asti said, pointing the way. “See the girl with the shield? Go to her.” Missus Hoskins and her granddaughter didn’t hesitate, and Almer pulled Gelson along with an understanding nod.

  “And you?” Kimber asked.

  “I’m going to end this,” he said. “I have to.”

  She nodded.

  “I can help,” Jared said, holding his mace. Asti wanted to believe that, would have welcomed it. But despite Jared’s strong arms, his hands quavered. His eyes weren’t focusing. He was already drunk. Or still from the night before.

  “Help in there,” Asti said. “Stay with Kimber. If something goes wrong—”

  Jared grunted in assent. Kimber squeezed Asti’s arm one more time, and then the two of them ran to Jerinne.

  Asti couldn’t watch them go in. Another group of zealots had smashed down the doors of a tenement, and were dragging people out into the street.

  Not today.

  Not in his neighborhood.

  Knives out, Asti dove in.

  Minox needed contact. As crude as it was, he had a need to engage in pure physical altercation with Ithaniel Senek, to take down this twisted architect of horror. He charged at the man, balling magic into his fist and knocking a powerful blow against his skull.

  Senek smiled as the magic burst off Minox’s hand, and the black and white energy pooled around him, swirling into an impossible blade that formed around Senek’s hand. He brought the blade—looking like lightning and shattered fire—down on Minox. Minox blocked with the sword he was carrying, holding it with both hands. He pushed the magic into his own blade, holding it together, holding off Senek’s attack.

  “I told you,” Minox said. “You would be thwarted. Your plans would be denied.”

  “I see nothing being denied, Inspector,” Senek said. “You fools are providing a brief moment of entertainment until our ascension is complete. We will be transformed. We will be exalted.”

  Minox kept at him, with sword and magic, but to no avail. Every blow Minox struck was blocked, and every bit of magic he threw at Senek, the man just took and reshaped to his own end.

  Senek knew his craft, on every level. He was a master mage. Minox was an untrained fool. He would not defeat him with magic. Not directly.

  But maybe he didn’t need to defeat the man. Maybe he just needed to distract him long enough for Inspector Rainey and Mister Rynax to disable the machine.

  He would need to be controlled. He would need to contain his magic.

  Pulling in with all his will, he drew down the magic in his hand. Every ounce. Make it like a dead piece of stone. Without the magic, he couldn’t move his hand or his fingers.

  Which is why he had left it as a fist.

  He was a Welling. His family’s blood had served the streets of the city, served the Constabulary with loyalty. He would not fail.

  He pushed in, remembering his training as a cadet. Remembering the wrestling spars with Oren and his cousins as children. Remembering the first arrest he made as a horsepatrol, the fight that alley rat had made.

  He pushed in, knocking Senek’s magical blade out of his way with his sword, and hammered his dead fist at the man. His hand that felt nothing. He slammed it again and again on the man, unleashing brutal punishment on him.

  Senek brought the blade on Minox, driving it into his shoulder. It did not cut him, but pierced him with fire that ran through his body, holding him frozen.

  Minox screamed, but he would bear the pain.

  He had to bear it.

  He brought his hand down on Senek once more, and this time he drew magic into it.

  All of it.

  Senek screamed as Minox pulled every bit of energy he could, dissolving the magic blade.

  “No!” Senek screamed. He grabbed Minox’s hand. “You don’t deserve this!”

  He tried to draw and take control of the hand, but Minox pushed back.

  Too hard. No control.

  The energy burst forth, throwing Minox away from Senek and knocking them both on the ground.

  “More! More!” Crenaxin shouted from the platform. “The fuel is in the false church! Tear it down! Take them all! Bring them to me!”

  All the beasts howled, and then charged at the church, where Jerinne Fendall stood alone on the steps, ushering the last civilians through the door.

  The beasts all went right to her.

  Dayne had never been hit so hard as he was by Gurond. Even though he blocked every blow with the shield, each punch still knocked Dayne back.

  “Pendall!” Dayne urged. “You don’t have to be a part of this.”

  “Why do you call me that?” Gurond said, continuing to hammer on Dayne. Dayne didn’t know how long he could stand it, how long before the shield would be dented into nothing, but he would hold. Every moment Gurond was focused on him, he wasn’t hurting anyone else. Keep his attention while the others saved the children, stopped the machine.

  “It’s your name,” Dayne said between blows. “You are Pendall Gurond. Son of Lord Gurond of Itasiana. Born to a noble house.”

  “Noble?” Gurond shouted. “Gurond is not noble!” He slammed both fists on Dayne, knocking him to his knees. “Our name is nothing now. Nothing!”

  Gurond raised up his arms wide, showing his great full height, his sinewy, shiny body. He laughed, which sounded bizarre with his gruff voice and over-toothed mouth.

  “Make it noble again,” Dayne said. “You still can.”

  “I am only this now,” Gurond said.

  “You are still a man,” Dayne implored. “No matter what was done to you, that remains true. You are a man that can reason. You can choose.”

  Gurond grabbed Dayne’s shield and wrenched it from his arm. “I choose the Brotherhood.”

  “Even after—”

  Gurond’s massive fist pounded into Dayne’s face, knocking him to the cobblestone.

  “I was near dead,” Gurond said. “I remember it all now. The Thorn nearly killed me. Senek saved me. Made me stronger. Better.”

  Dayne pushed himself up, spitting out blood. “You aren’t better. Better is standing up for something.”

  Another punch knocked him down. “You aren’t standing.”
<
br />   “I will keep getting up,” Dayne said. “And when I can’t, someone else will.”

  “No,” Gurond said, hammering another punch onto Dayne. “You will all stay down.”

  “This city . . .” Dayne said, forcing his arms to push himself to his knees. “Is full of people who will stand up to you.”

  “I only see the cowering, the hiding,” Gurond said. “The fear.”

  “We . . . will . . .”

  Gurond smashed him down to the ground again. “You have no ‘we.’ Just you, lonely Tarian.” Gurond grabbed Dayne by the front of his uniform and raised him high in the air. “And now you will die alone.”

  He hurled Dayne down, to smash him on the cobblestone. But Dayne didn’t hit the ground, instead he was cradled and protected, then pulled out of the way before Gurond’s massive fists smashed onto him.

  Pulled away and deposited on his feet by a rope.

  “Hey, Gurond,” the Thorn said, landing next to Dayne, staff in hand. “Thought we should have one more dance before the party ended.”

  “Get the doors shut!”

  Jerinne slammed into one beast with her shield, knocking it out of the church doorway. She pushed with her shield, holding it against the wall, while the last two children ran inside.

  The creature swiped at her, its claws raking into her side. She cried out, stumbling away from it, and it dashed into the church. She pressed one hand onto the wound, hot blood seeping through her fingers. Saints, it was deep. It didn’t matter. Those children—all the civilians in the church—would be slaughtered by that thing. And she would stand between them and harm, no matter the cost.

  Step by agonizing step, she pushed her way into the narthex. The beast howled and was about to grab one of the children.

  “Not today!”

  A grizzled old man, bald with a shaggy beard, charged up on the creature, battering it with an army mace. He slammed it again and again, while it clawed at his arms. Jerinne raised up her sword and drove it into the beast as hard as she could, just as it closed its massive maw on the old man’s head. Both the creature and the old man fell over, dead.

  Jerinne looked back outside. At least five more creatures were galloping up the church steps. With the last bit of strength she had, she pushed the massive church door shut. She threw down the wooden bar to latch it just as the beasts slammed into it, making it shudder at the hinges.

  “You’re hurt.”

  A Cloistress of the Blue was there, taking Jerinne’s arm, leading her away from the door, as the beasts howled and pounded on it.

  “Barely a scratch,” Jerinne lied. She forced herself to stay on her feet, but dropped her shield. “That door isn’t going to hold. Get inside and shut the door to the narthex. I’ll hold it here.”

  “You won’t survive,” the cloistress said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jerinne said. “I’ll stand between you and them.”

  “You won’t survive,” the cloistress said again. She pulled Jerinne over to the bell tower entrance. “But you have to survive. You aren’t supposed to be here, this isn’t your place.”

  “My place—ow!” The cloistress had torn open Jerinne’s tunic to look at the wound.

  “It’s deep. You need to—you need—” The cloistress took a few steps away, looking around the narthex. “Why are you even here, this isn’t . . . you were supposed to be at the chapterhouse . . . no . . . at the opera house . . . but if you didn’t go there, if . . . if . . . if . . .” She started pounding on her own head.

  Jerinne didn’t have time for this nonsense. The cloistress needed to get out of here. She tried to reach out to her, but her strength faltered. She could barely even take a step.

  “Close the door between here and the nave,” Jerinne said as her feet gave out. She slumped to the floor. “You all have to stay safe.”

  The cloistress turned around, and looked at the people in the nave. “Do as she says. Shut it, barricade it, and hide yourselves. Now!”

  Whoever she gave those orders to obeyed. Jerinne couldn’t quite see, everything was going hazy, and her head was pounding.

  No, the pounding was on the door. Each slam knocked the hinges a little looser.

  But the doors to the chapel were shut, and the people in there were safe.

  Except the cloistress was still there, in the narthex.

  “What are you doing?” Jerinne asked.

  “I don’t even know,” the cloistress said, kneeling next to the dead old man. “I’ve remembered today so many times, but this isn’t how it ever went. I’m still not sure this is really now. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Jerinne said. Where could she hide this girl, protect her? Was the bell tower safe?

  “I’ve remembered today so many times, as the person I am tomorrow. And you’re not supposed to be . . . you are supposed to be with her . . . but it’s today, and you’re here. Why . . . why do I remember all the wrong todays?” She picked up his mace, looking at it with confusion. “I know this isn’t mine, not the one that I . . . I know this isn’t who I am, not today. But I’m here, today, with this in my hand. Even if it isn’t mine, I need to take it up.”

  Jerinne tried to get back on her feet, slumping against the wall in the base of the bell tower to stay upright. “Sister, you have to get out of here.”

  The cloistress let the mace fall and came back into the bell tower. “I don’t have much time. Now if you’re the one in the narthex, you will die. And if you die today, no one—” Her eyes glassed over for a moment, as she looked up to the top of the bell tower. “No one will be there to save her.”

  The main doors were splintering. Those things would be in here any moment.

  “I have to—”

  The sister cupped her hand around the back of Jerinne’s head. “You have to live, Jerinne.” The other hand went to the wound. “You have to live.”

  Suddenly the wound burned, scorching hot, and Jerinne couldn’t hold back her scream.

  “Listen to me,” the cloistress said, her words intense, her face full of fear. “I have to fix this. We weren’t supposed to meet until Erescan, Jerinne. I thought if I changed the path of today, I could end it all here. But I think I got it all wrong, if you’re here now. I’m so sorry. You have to live.”

  Jerinne could barely hear, barely think straight, as the fire of the cloistress’s touch seared through her body.

  “You have to live,” the sister said again in a whisper. She pushed Jerinne to the ground and went back into the narthex. “And I have to become who I was tomorrow.”

  The doors cracked open. Another blow and they would fly apart.

  Jerinne tried to get to her feet, but she had no strength to do so. She barely could breathe through the burning pain in her side. She was on fire.

  The sister picked up Jerinne’s shield and the old man’s mace, and looked back to Jerinne. Her expression changed. No fear on her face.

  “This is for tomorrow.”

  With a sudden, assured motion, the sister spun and knocked the door to the bell tower closed.

  In the same moment, the front doors flew open, and at least six of those horrible monstrosities poured in. The last thing Jerinne saw before the door slammed shut was the cloistress turning toward them, shield high, mace at the ready.

  Then the pain exploded through Jerinne, burning through her whole body, knocking all sense out of her as her world went dark.

  Chapter 23

  “THORN,” GUROND SAID, THE WORD rolling through his throat. “You came to die as well.”

  “Not really the plan,” the Thorn said.

  Dayne did his best to stay on his feet, but the pummeling he had taken from Gurond made that almost impossible.

  “You can’t take him,” Dayne said. “He’s too—”

  “I probably can’t,” Thorn sai
d. He flashed a quick smile. “But five crowns says we can.”

  Gurond charged at them, and the Thorn jumped out of the way, staying out of the reach of Gurond’s massive fists. He bounced and flipped, always too quick to be touched. He went over the man, planting his staff in Gurond’s face, then landed far behind him. Gurond spun around, enraged. It was like watching a rabbit fight a bull, though Dayne feared one wrong step would get the rabbit gored.

  A bull.

  “Hey, Thorn,” Dayne called. “You ever been to Lacanja?”

  “Yeah,” the Thorn called back as he adroitly dodged the massive fists. “Great fish crackle there. And the oysters! Though when we finish this up, there’s this Fuergan place—”

  “I was thinking more the Blood Shows.”

  “Shut it!” Gurond shouted. “I’m going to give you a blood show!”

  The Thorn dodged another blow and nodded. “I got you,” he said, and tossed his staff to Dayne. Then he ducked another punch and slipped under Gurond’s legs. With a roll he ran over to Dayne. “I figure I’m the Zany and you’re the Burly.”

  “Makes sense,” Dayne said. He had only gone to the Blood Show once when he was in Lacanja—Master Denbar insisted he take in the local culture—and he couldn’t stand to watch such casual cruelty to an animal in the name of entertainment. But he remembered it well enough.

  “Hey, Gurond, hey, hey, Gurond,” the Thorn said, waving his hands and making magical sparkles. “Weren’t you always going off on how strong you are?”

  “I am the strongest!” Gurond shouted, charging at him. The Thorn blasted him in the face with the sparkles as he leaped away from the charge. At the same moment, Dayne burst forward, sweeping low with the staff and knocking Gurond off balance. The great giant went flying and landed on his face.

  “Look where that got you,” the Thorn said when he landed. “Turned into a freak!”

  “I will tear you both apart!” Gurond shouted, turning to Dayne as he got up.

  “And what about your friends?” Thorn called quickly. “Samael and Coleman? You know what happened to them?”