by Choi, Bryan
“Because you’re the most disagreeable little twit I’ve ever known. So I want to set you straight.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, damned oppressor.”
“Says you.” Draco rolled his eyes and continued his attempts to scan the river. “God’s droppings, it’s got to be four bells by now. Even the Imperium needs to sleep. Let’s give up on this and just pack it in up here…”
He almost missed a subtle flicker in his vision. Not really wanting to, he focused his lenses on a break in the fog and clenched his jaw.
“Wait, you don’t think Natalis is queer, right? Then I’m really out of options...” Hadassah said, sleepily.
“Damn!” Draco said. “Put glass on the riverbank, now!”
“Okay, okay! Keep your leggings on.” Hadassah balanced her rifle in the crook of her elbow and peered through the attached, fabric-wrapped scope. The Mosin-Nagant fired one of the most powerful types of ammunition they had, with a heavy bullet that could punch through brick on a direct hit. Built by an empire that had fallen long before the first prana users walked the old world, it was the ultimate in simplicity and ruggedness. A Nagant also performed equally well as a spear or a club.
She slowed her breathing and steadying her muscles. The Pritsel Ukorrochennij scope mounted on her rifle was vastly superior to the coarsely ground lenses of Draco’s spyglass. It allowed her to focus with more clarity even though her field of view was much smaller.
“Imperials! Either janissaries or mamluks,” she said. “A lot of them, too. Looks like they’re pushing boats into the river and paddling across.”
Methodically, she tracked the figures walking along the bank through the scope. It was clear from their heavy armor and weaponry that they were no mere scouting party.
Draco scowled. “Why isn’t the fornicating ship doing anything? They’ve got enough cannon to wipe out a legion!”
“Maybe they don’t know?” Hadassah shrugged.
“Or they’ve been taken.”
“Do you suppose there are spetsnaz-types down there? I don’t see any.”
Draco patted the grip of his sidearm to reassure himself. “If the rumors are true, they’re already here. We need to raise an alarm.”
“A fat lot of good that’ll do,” Hadassah said. “We’re like, the only ones on the wall right now. This garrison really likes to fap itself to sleep.”
“Aye, and it rubs me wrong. The more I think about how undermanned this place is the less I like that castellan.”
Hadassah frowned. “You think we’re being set up?”
“I do. But I won’t let assholes disgrace us that easily. Not from their side, and not from ours. Look, there’s an officer near the large pile of fallen trees directing the boarding effort. Kill him, and it’ll cause some confusion in their ranks. Make them slower.”
“I have the bastard. Range two-hundred twenty. Elevation minus thirty. Wind speed six to the north. On target!” She emptied her lungs and licked her lips.
“Send… Wait! What’s in your chamber?”
“Milligrad, of course.”
“Fine, send it.”
With a loud crack and a titanic amount of smoke, Hadassah’s Nagant flashed and turned night into day for a millisecond. Its 200-grain lead projectile screamed through the air at five hundred meters per second and slammed into the janissary leutnant’s chest on the opposite end of the river. Having lost minimal velocity, the bullet tore through his plate and brigandine, bored through an overlying rib, and sent pieces of lung out of the exit wound in his back. The rounded ogive of the projectile sheared away from the spitzer point and yawed to the side, entering a sergeant’s throat. The men toppled over, dying. Soldiers surrounding the fallen cursed and dove to cover. They aimed their rifles at the citadel but preserved enough sense not to fire blindly back.
“Hit, right chest. Second hit, center of neck. And for fuck’s sake, that was a reload!” Draco frothed in annoyance.
“I got a double-kill, didn’t I?”
“I swear, I’m going to take that 'grad you just hoarded and toss it in the river next time you do that.”
“Don’t you dare, pervert!”
Movement down in the water caught Draco’s attention. The Argead lorcha had been suspiciously quiet the entire time, but now it bustled with activity. Besides the four short-barreled carronade cannons lining the top deck, it also had a mortar that could lob massive shells over the horizon. A tiny glint and puff of smoke from a firing pan confirmed his suspicions, and his eyes widened with realization.
“Oh shit… We’re being shelled!” Draco snarled. He wrenched Hadassah by the arm and tossed her down the nearby hatch. A high pitched whine grew in intensity just as he hopped in himself. The two rolled painfully down steep, circular stone steps and crashed ungracefully into each other at the bottom of a landing just as the bomb hit.
On instinct, Draco threw one arm over his companion’s head and the other over his eyes as they were pelted with a sudden spray of fiery dust. Training and muscle memory kicked in for both and they invoked a quick protection mantra with sweeps of their fingers and whispered invocations. Protective energy enveloped their bodies just in time to mitigate the impact from chunks of stone and concrete bouncing down from above. Draco coughed and spat, looking up at the flames that sealed the path upward, and exhaled in relief.
“Hah! Stupid motherfuckers!” Hadassah cackled in satisfaction as the subtle shimmer of her prana dissipated back to nothingness. “Try to blow me up, will ya?” She stood up haughtily and slapped the dust out of her padded doublet. “Emmy, are you going to sit there all day?”
“Oh, if only I could be so blissfully dense…” Draco muttered, and rose painfully to his feet. One of the shoulder guards attached to his gambeson had bent and dug into his bicep when he moved, probably a result of the tumble. Annoyed at losing part of his armor, he drew his dirk from its sheath and pried the damaged segment loose. It fell to the floor with a clank. His partner topped off her rifle’s magazine and he took the moment to inspect his sidearm.
A black-powder arm using a caplock action to fire, the LeMat revolver held nine shots of .44-caliber lead ball. The reason Draco favored it over a more advanced pistol, was because, with a flick of a lever, he could have it fire a 20-gauge lead-antimony slug from its massive secondary barrel. This feature was perfect for dispatching royal templars or Imperial guard, who wore such thick armor that killing one cost far too much milligrad. It also let him keep more milligrad in his pockets.
Satisfied that the gun seemed to be in working order and the selector switch moved the hammer easily from barrel to barrel, he holstered it back under his shoulder. It had been foolish to assume that his luck had changed. He’d merely traded death by potato peeling for death by Imperium. The same invaders he had seen from below would be infesting the fortress by now and looking to kill.
“Ah well, at least this way is more interesting,” he sighed.
As soon as the alarms started to ring, Lotte and Taki had rushed back to the galley in an effort to find their commander and regroup. They recognized the same men who had been gambling earlier. The dead guards slumped against the walls clutching their leggings and pooling blood on the cobbles. To no one’s surprise, the winnings pile was completely absent and Hecaton nowhere to be seen. Lotte sighed and squatted to examine the ground for anything she could use to track the elusive major.
Behind her, a tankard clanked against the floor and her pupils dilated instantly. “Watch your back!”
Lotte’s warning registered in Taki’s consciousness just in time for him to sidestep a sword thrust to his ribs and counter with a jab of his yatagan. He slipped through a gap in the cuirass and managed to bury it a good hand’s breadth into his attacker’s side. With a sweep of his arm he cut away a swath of tissue before following with a whirling blow that cleft his enemy’s tinpot helmet down the middle. Two more men with axes charged forward, one aiming for an overhead cut and the other going for a horizonta
l sweep. Taki opened his gates.
“Plei Khala,” he hissed. A rippling pocket of super-compressed air shot forward and hit the two attackers. The sudden release of pressure threw them against the far wall to shatter bones and fill their lungs with blood.
Taki realized, as he shook the frost off of his palm, that in the space of less than a minute he had made his first kills. His first human kills. Training at the monastery had involved fairly realistic targets. Never was he slashing or shooting at a mere bullseye, but always a man-shaped dummy. Yet there was still a difference. The dummies did not gurgle, nor did they have eyes that refused to close in death. His instructors had warned him of what would happen next. Euphoria, followed by near instant regret, and then rationalization. Strange, he mused. Where’s the guilt? The men had charged him with intent to take his life, and he had killed them in return. It was part of his job, after all, to dispatch his enemies. The thought that they were among the elite of the Imperium filled him with giddiness. He triumphantly charged his gates again and turned to see if his captain needed assistance. When I bail her out, she’ll see my worth for sure!
Lotte brought her greatshield up and a janissary’s double-headed axe smashed into it and bit wood. The blow would have shattered most other fighters’ defenses, but Lotte shrugged it off as easily as one would flick a bug away. Before her opponent could recover, she burst forward and thrust with her greatsword. It punched through his cuirass and he retched gore through the slits of his facemask. Continuing the momentum of her attack, Lotte effortlessly wrenched the blade out and swung it in an arc to take the top off another enemy’s head and cut a third man in twain under the armpits. A fourth janissary tried to harass her with the end of a pike. Unfazed, Lotte lopped the spearhead off, causing him to drop it and draw a thrusting sword. Before the blade cleared its sheath, her greatsword smashed into his neck and sent his head flying. While the body toppled, she firmly chopped the air to send the blood on her blade splattering on the ground.
Taki gulped at the sight. His captain had never needed his assistance in the first place. In fact, she had probably saved him from being completely overwhelmed while he had concentrated on casting. He clenched his teeth, feeling embarrassed. A staccato press of gunshots rang out and forced him to retreat behind a corner.
“Corporal, go back and round up the others and the major if possible. I’ll finish them off here and meet up with you at the gatehouse.” Lotte said as she brought out her pistol and started to fire back. A Temple Gun of the highest grade, hers was marked with a rearing Colt on its deeply blued slide. Brass casings pinged against the walls and settled into divots between the cobbles. “If the enemy opens the inner ring, the fortress is theirs for the taking. They probably have spetsnaz to make sure this happens. We need to face them together or we will fail!”
“But Captain, I can’t just leave you here,” Taki protested as he unslung his carbine. He leaned around the corner and fired twice. His eyes instantly watered from the smoke and he regretted not spending milligrad. The gun he carried barely qualified as a relic at all, and was colloquially referred to as a “Bastard” by those who used it. Assembled with a hodgepodge of parts from ancient arms deemed unworthy of salvage, no two Bastards were alike, save for their inherent unreliability. They even generated more smoke than the meanest conscript arquebus. Lotte angrily waved away the caustic billows that clouded her vision before pointing her Colt at Taki’s face. He flinched in surprise and fear.
“Do not question my orders,” she hissed. “I don’t intend to stay here and get slaughtered. Just meet me at the gatehouse with the others. Trust me!”
She shifted her aim away and squeezed off another two rounds to fell an enemy, who slumped over into the hallway. In response, a hail of shot left deep gouges in the soft stone near where she crouched and forced her to duck. The fallen man’s companions dragged him out of danger by his ankles, leaving streaks of crimson on the cobbles.
Taki grit his teeth, regretting that he had forgotten his place and hoping that she would not hold it against him. The realization that he was more worried about a blemish on his record than survival struck him as perverse, but he could not spare the time to reflect on it. More importantly, she was right that he would contribute little to stem the onslaught. With a final glance at his captain, he slung his smoking carbine across his back and raced down the hall to find his companions.
As he ran down nearly-deserted corridors, worry nagged at him. The Vergina citadel was the Dominion’s most important bulwark against Imperial aggression from the north. So why had it allowed an army inside its walls without a fuss? Surely the castellan wasn’t a traitor. Taki paused to chastise himself. Seditious thoughts opened the gates to heresy, and polaris were especially prone to committing that gravest of sins. They were locked away from good people for that very reason, after all.
The sound of fighting nearby diverted his attention. He inched forward and peeked his head around a corner.
“These shitlords coming out the walls or something?” Hadassah snarled as she parried a saber cut to her head. In exchange, she sank the chisel-point bayonet at the end of her Nagant into his gut. Seeing that her weapon was still stuck in his comrade, another tried to bash her head in with a mace. She whipped her own pistol out from her baldric and shot two rounds into her attacker’s chest and one into his forehead. He fell, blood spurting from the fatal wounds. She turned on another man and punched the muzzle into his teeth to knock him back before shooting him in the throat. “Say hello to ‘Esther!’” she cackled, blowing acrid smoke away from the thickly pitted barrel.
“If you’re going to name your piece, you should feed her a better diet!” Draco countered as he swung his fighting iron in an arc. His swing connected with an unhelmeted enemy and knocked the man over with his brain exposed. He deftly avoided a sword thrust from another enemy and lashed out with the iron again. The janissary caught it with the aid of a heavy gauntlet and pulled. Draco drew a fighting dirk and stabbed it into his enemy’s neck through a gap in the armor.
“I think I like weapons better than people. They don’t bitch and complain over every little thing,” Hadassah said. She twisted a commando’s elbow into a joint lock and whirled him into a sword thrust meant for her. The body dropped and she planted two rounds in the swordsman’s chest before executing her stricken quarry on the ground.
Her slide locked back on an empty magazine. She drew one of the wood-handled canister bombs from her baldric, lit the fuse cord, and made to throw it in Taki’s direction.
“Hold!” Taki emerged from his cover.
Hadassah frowned. “Shit, I thought you were one of them! What’re you doing skulking around there?”
“Your bomb!” Taki pointed. “You’re still holding it!”
“Oh, this?” Hadassah pinched out the sparkling end and shoved it back in its place.
Taki stared, dumbfounded. “Are you insane? What if it lights back up again?”
She laughed. “It’s a fake. I use it to flush out idiots. You know, like yourself.”
“L-ludicrous.” He clenched his jaw, angry at having been so easily fooled. “We need to regroup with the Captain. She mentioned a gatehouse. Head there with all haste.”
Draco waved dismissively. “Aye, we will, but after taking care of necessities.”
Taki grimaced. “What necessities?”
“Our spoils, of course.” Draco took out a knife and crouched over one of the fallen. He started, methodically, to cut away the straps on the dead man’s armor and rummage through his pockets. To Taki’s horror, Hadassah was busy doing the same. “You’re welcome to a share, by the way, so don’t be shy.”
“We’re in the midst of battle, and all you can think of is looting? What of our orders?”
“If you’re worried about the Captain, don’t be,” Draco said. “She’ll take care of herself, and she’s also entitled to plunder.”
Taki balled his hands into fists. “This is unforgivable. Where’s your v
alor?”
“Valor doesn’t pay for food. It also ends up getting you killed. Relax. The place will hold up for a few minutes.”
“I’ve never seen such cowardice!” Taki fumed and paced. “If you won’t help fight, then I will!”
“Have it your way, man.” Draco shoved a handful of milligrad into a pouch hanging from his belt and moved on to the next body. “Dassa, help me. This one’s a woman.”
“So what?” Hadassah said. “She’s dead.”
Taki turned and ran. Godrotting losers! Pieces of shit! I’ll show them how a real patriot comports himself!
Aslatiel stepped into the citadel with his Alfa. The janissaries had been brutally efficient, and the armory’s forces completely unprepared and undermanned. Dominion men lay strewn across the corridors of the outer fortifications in gruesome poses, with bodies studded by bullet wounds to complement their missing limbs and heads. Now he needed to make sure that the inner ring would fall with the same ease. He picked up the subtle essence of prana discharge wafting down from above. So there were polaris on the premises. He would have to find them and snuff them out before they could coordinate an effective defense.
Shots burst out and provoked the soldiers to instinctively duck. At the threshold of a metal doorway leading to the inner ring gatehouse, two janissaries rolled down the stairs bleeding and limp. The rest of the entry group froze, still stacked up outside and unsure of whether to keep going. With one hand resting on the hilt of his blade, Aslatiel sidled up the steps while avoiding exposing himself to fire and placed his other hand on the cool surface of the door. With his prana he could sense the enemy’s location when sight, sound, and smell could not. To others, this sort of tactical prescience was tantamount to witchcraft. Usually, that earned his kind fear and resentment.
“Hold fast,” Aslatiel commanded. “They’ve got at least a dozen in there behind concealment, all with crossbows and guns aimed at whoever comes in. It’s a deathtrap.”