I made my way through Beaky’s guts, and out, descending to the ground below. Thirteenth Chain stood at the edge of the quarry, holding his burren’s reins in one hand, conferring with the Grimalkin. Several of the Damned, alerted by the oddness of his unscheduled return, were making their way up the cliffside paths, but it’d take them a few more minutes at least.
I landed, kicking up the ever-present dust. “REPORT.”
He thumped his chest, Roman-style. “Lady Dire. Sa binding of chains hie Broken Nails Riding found and pursued me. Na reason for them to do unless I thought a renegade.”
I nodded and looked toward the distant dust, zooming in as I did so. Shapes far back in the clouds, that could be burren and demons. But they were slow now, stopping.
“HOW GOOD IS YOUR EYESIGHT?” I asked him.
“Good.” He pointed at the shapes. “Seven of them, riding jan-jan, and their Grimalkin. Worra stopped because tey do not know what to make of Bee-kee, or you.”
I gnawed my lip, measured the distance. Five miles off, give or take, and they could see me easily. My particle beams could go the distance, but the dust would severely impact accuracy and force, scatter and disperse a fair amount of their effect.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to reveal my full power in front of our tame demons. Or worse, run the risk of a hammer blow seeming weak, if it failed.
“YOUR ENGLISH HAS IMPROVED,” I told him, weighing the pros and cons.
“I do much practice.”
As I watched the shapes melted back into the dust. Thirteenth Chain hissed in amusement. “Tey scatter. Fearful tey, worra chalt-lickers.”
“THEY ARE TRYING TO ENSURE THAT AT LEAST ONE OF THEM MAKES IT BACK TO REPORT.” I nodded. “COME. WE SHALL CALL COUNCIL.”
I made my way back down to the altar and waited for word to spread around the quarry. One by one they trickled in... my Damned, my demons, and my friends.
“THIRTEENTH CHAIN,” I told them once all were assembled. “TELL ALL YOUR REPORT.” He did so, and the mob of Damned started muttering, glancing back and forth. They feared the demons and rightly so.
No point in letting that go on too long. I pointed to the Grimalkin, let my finger traverse to Thirteenth Chain. “SPEAK ALL YOU KNOW OF THIS BROKEN NAILS RIDING.”
“Fools. Cowards. Canny la, but tey cowards.” Thirteenth Chain rubbed his chin. “Six t’ousand hellions. Twice as much hesh.”
“Hesh are those who cannot fight,” the Grimalkin explained.
Khalid leaned over and translated for the Chorus, who couldn’t hear his mindspeech. “So weakuns like you?” Gamma inquired.
The Grimalkin narrowed his eyes to slits, and scraped three-inch-long claws along the rock of the altar, leaving gouges in the stone. “Hardly.” His paid servant, Urbi, scratched his back in an obvious attempt to calm him, but The Cat’s eyes never left Gamma.
No love lost there. No matter. We had bigger things to ponder. “SIX THOUSAND. HOW CLOSE ARE THEY?”
“Ten... days ride, outwards.” He gestured west.
Khalid frowned. “Yet they came this far?”
“Worra hate us, ban blood feud on Iron Scream Riding. And...” he hesitated, looked to the Grimalkin.
“You have been setting the Damned free,” The Cat said, claws gone once more. “Those that do not join you, flee. By now they have noticed some of those who flee and taken it as a sign of weakness against our Riding.”
Infernal politics. “THEIR BORDER IS NOT FAR, THEN?”
“Ten days, I said.”
I blinked. I’d taken his turn of phrase to mean that they’d been riding ten days from a specific point. “EXACTLY HOW MUCH LAND DO THEY CONTROL?”
That took time, work, a lot of cross-translation, and a sheet of medium-grade burren leather broken out of storage to make a crude map. At the end of it, glad for the face-concealing armor I was wearing, I found myself a little aghast at the truth we’d just learned.
Hell was big.
The Broken Nails Riding controlled an area somewhere around the size of Connecticut. And they weren’t even a major player! Iron Scream, the ones who nominally controlled the region we’d ended up in, had about twice the territory, but only about a tenth more combatants. “How is it they haven’t conquered you?” Cassius asked, tapping the map with a worn fingernail.
“Tey cowards,” Thirteenth Chain insisted. “Even if tey were not, our allies would crush them if they succeeded.”
“ALLIES. LIKE THAT CITY YOU MENTIONED, A FEW MONTHS BACK. CAYM, WAS IT? WHERE IS IT ON THE MAP?”
The place hadn’t been far from my thoughts, during this ramp up. Much of the quarry’s work, many of the raw materials had gone into Beaky but with Caym in mind.
The only sticking point had been getting my Damned to go along with the idea, to leave everything we’d built for them here. And now I’d just been handed the perfect opportunity to shift the narrative and build up the kayfabe for the main event.
You don’t let an opportunity slip by.
The demons pored over the map, and eventually Thirteenth Chain’s clawed finger rested on a spot a fair distance away.
“THREE HUNDRED MILES, GIVE OR TAKE.” I nodded. “SOUNDS GOOD. VERY WELL, DIRE SHALL TAKE IT.”
“How does one take miles?” Juno asked. “Do you mean to take a journey, instead?”
“NO. DIRE MEANS TO TAKE THE CITY.”
Silence, save for the wind howling over the quarry. The Damned looked to each other. The demons looked to me, eyes wide. Vector coughed and raised a hand, but Khalid pulled it down, whispered in his ear. The Cat’s eyes slid to him, then to the Chorus, who stood mute with metal arms folded. They knew a moment when they saw it. Not least because I’d altered my photogenia app to alert them whenever I was using it. And oh, it was coming in handy, calculating the best angle to stand at for the wind to buffet my cape in a properly villainous way, adjusting the tilt of my head so that the light best reflected off my mask. At its suggestion I lifted a gauntlet and clenched my fingers. “CAYM SHALL BE HERS, AFTER WE FINISH BUSINESS HERE.”
“Caym has six million hellions,” Thirteenth Chain said, the words oozing out of him slowly. “Six times that in hesh. You are only one.”
“WE ARE FORTY-FOUR.” I gestured at the crowd. “AND ONE OF THEM IS DIRE.”
“Illwrack rules there, third of his name,” The Grimalkin pointed out. “Eleventhborn of Buer, he has slain the beasts of Grond and laid waste to fallen Vornia.”
“THAT’S NICE. IF HE HANDS HIS CITY OVER WITHOUT A FIGHT, DIRE SHALL LET HIM WALK AWAY ALIVE.”
Their silence spoke for them, as the two demons looked to each other, turned, and walked away. The Damned drifted off as well, but I heard murmurs as they broke off into small knots, and saw obols trading hands. Betting on me. Betting on how it would end up.
Good.
Khalid and Vector slid in next to me, and the Chorus fell into line behind us as I strode back toward Beaky and bed. Once we were back aboard our lair and away from the rest of our allies, Khalid gave voice to his thoughts.
“You are formidable, but I do not know if you are six million hellions worth of formidable. These Chains are low on the scale, and a highborn of a Fallen Angel will be much stronger, and have more powerful demons under his command.”
“DIRE’S BEEN GIVING MUCH THOUGHT TO THAT. AND SHE’S CONCLUDED THAT IT DOESN’T MATTER.”
“Okay, I want to hear the explanation for this,” Vector folded his arms.
“SIMPLY PUT, WE’RE HITTING DIMINISHING RETURNS IN THE QUARRY. WE HAVE THE BEST MATERIALS FROM THIS PLACE THAT WE COULD OBTAIN WITHOUT HEAVY EMPLACED MINING MACHINERY AND DOING THAT WOULD REQUIRE A TIME INVESTMENT THAT WE SIMPLY CANNOT AFFORD. UNTIL NOW, THE DEMONS HAVE NOT TAKEN NOTICE OF US. BUT EXPANDING OPERATIONS... WELL, THAT WOULD DRAW IRE. AND FIRE.”
“Which would probably be easier to deal with than six million hellions,” Vector pointed out.
I looked to my Chorus. This could be a good opportunity to test them, now that
I thought of it. “WANT TO TAKE IT FROM HERE?”
“Absolutely,” Gamma said, taking charge, about as I expected her to. “From what we’ve observed, the paradigm that Hell operates upon is grinding despair and wearing its prisoners and foes down with time and vast numbers. Getting into a slugging match with the forces of Hell is a bad idea. They’ll always have the home court advantage; there will always be more of them, and most living things down here are not affected by standard entropy. Ten years or ten thousand, they don’t care. So at all costs, we must avoid playing to their paradigm.”
I nodded. “PLAYING SATAN’S GAME IS A LOSING PROPOSITION.”
“Which is why in the short-term, those Broken Nail doofuses ain’t a real threat,” Delta said, taking over Gamma’s narrative with long-practiced ease. “There’s a bunch of them but they’re spread out over a state’s worth of turf, and even if they wanted to mobilize in our direction, any army large enough to bother us would take weeks or even months to muster. We’ll be gone by then.”
“Which is key to the strategy that we seem to be priming for,” Epsilon took over. “Emphasizing speed, mobility, and surgical strikes. Six, six thousand, or six million won’t matter so long as we control the initiative and maintain superior mobility. Because at the end of the day, we aren’t an army. We’re supervillains. Most of us.” He glanced apologetically to Khalid and received a reserved nod in return.
“My kids.” Alpha threw his hands wide, looked to me. “How’d they do? Gold star? A-plus?”
“CLOSE ENOUGH. ABOUT THE ONLY POINT YOU MISSED IS THAT WE NEED THE RESOURCES THAT A CITY HAS TO OFFER. WITHOUT THEM, OUR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STARTS HITTING UPPER LIMITS.” I flexed my fingers, feeling the motors grind a bit. “AND WE START LOSING EFFICIENCY WITH OUR CURRENT RESOURCES. IF THIS ARMOR DOESN’T SEE MAINTENANCE SOON, WELL...” We reached the living quarters, and I decanted. Still smelled horrible, every time I exited the suit. Didn’t think I’d ever get used to it. Didn’t want to.
“Perhaps my only objection is that we are going in blind,” Khalid said, sitting on one of the hammocks we’d strung in the corners. “The odds still seem against us, even if the strategy makes more sense, now.”
“Right. That’s not so good,” I said, sagging into my own hammock. “So here’s what we’re going to do about it...”
CHAPTER 5: THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING
“And lo, did Doctor Dire assay forth to treat with Illwrack, forgotten and despised. And lo, did she roll a one for her diplomacy check.”
--Excerpt from the third chapter of the first book of the Chronicles of the Shared Lie
Caym the crimson. Caym, the great wound of Hell. Caym, the City of Blood and Iron.
The river ended here; its great, scabbed tides twisting and roiling in hues of red and black, black from the crust and black from the flies that gathered and feasted upon its relentless waves. Brass-bottomed riverboats rowed up and down the river, bearing forth demons with pikes and nets, breaking up clots, fishing out Damned and stranger creatures, and keeping a sharp eye out for threats.
No surprise they spotted us first, really. I watched them through the cameras we’d made and mounted into Beaky’s edges, watched them stop their work and point skywards as the shadow of the Strix passed over them. Then we were leaving the river and journeying up the road, panicking the land traffic, the demons and burrens and carts that entered and left from the six great gates in the rusted iron wall that surrounded Caym. Damned writhed and shrieked upon that wall, their blood flowing down grooved channels that spelled out the history and legend of Caym and its rulers, a ruby-veined testament to this ancient city and its might. The cast-iron barrels of great cannons protruded, one between each gate, covering each approach with yawning, dark maws.
Above it all smoke rose from the fires and foundries of the city to pool in a dark, spreading cloud. If this wasn’t the source of the ash storms upriver I’d eat my mask.
The whole thing looked ripped straight from a heavy metal album cover.
The shadow of our lair crept up to the walls, and bat-winged demons flew up to meet us, maintaining a healthy distance but circling in a way that made it clear that they’d happily charge if we kept going.
I smiled under my mask.
“Showtime,” I whispered through my brand-new vox transceiver and climbed out of the hatch on Beaky’s back.
The demons whirled and circled. Long and thin, each of them had at least ten feet in height from clawed talons on their feet to horns on their heads. This didn’t count their wingspans or tails, which varied from group to group. I saw an order in them, the same sort of order one sees in a cloud of birds flying close together, wing beats synchronized in a roiling swarm.
There were perhaps four dozen of them, armed with long spears and javelins. They jabbed at Beaky’s heads as he squawked his rage and unleashed flame. Nimble, well-trained, and far more maneuverable, it was a good strategy for them.
But they hadn’t accounted for me.
I strode out from between two of Beaky’s heads, out of the edge of the flame clouds with my remade cape billowing in the thermals and fire reflecting from my shiny, shiny armor. I’d chromed up just for the occasion, and I could pinpoint the moment I caught their eyes as the flying fiends paused.
“CEASE,” I commanded them in hellspeech, lifting a hand and splaying my fingers in their direction.
A brief whirl as several of the larger ones, decorated in slightly more ornate clothing, conferred. Then they whipped around and sent javelins whistling my way. About half of them struck true, and I let them clatter off me with no real effect. Beaky whined as a few stuck in his hide, but they were too small to do any real damage.
I returned fire with a single particle burst, and five fell smoking from the sky. “CEASE OR BE DESTROYED,” I spoke again.
That got them scattering. Once they were out of sight, I folded my arms and stood there, resolute, waiting. The ball was in their court, and I doubted they had a serve I couldn’t return. I stepped forward to the edge of our Strix and gazed down upon the city. Dozens of miles wide, walls that towered high enough to blot out the sun for entire districts. Just slab after slab of iron. The bloody river flowed right through the center of it, winding past high gothic towers that stretched to the skies with countless crude shacks and hovels at their bases. In several cases buildings were built tall, narrow homes stretching eight or ten stories high, criss-crossed with cables and ropes. I followed the river with my eyes... until my sight fuzzed, as I looked to the very center of the city.
The anomaly.
We’d detected it sixty miles out. A zone that played hell with our electronics the closer we got, emitting raw electromagnetic interference. Fortunately my suit was hardened against it... though I didn’t want to test those defenses by getting too close. I’d built a shielded room within Beaky for the Greek Chorus. Until that thing was dealt with, they were out of action.
Which sucked, because I needed more intel on the anomaly before I made my power play, and without the Chorus to infiltrate as planned, or any spy-drones I could make that would withstand the emag, my options were limited.
Fortunately, I had friends.
“Khalid,” I voxxed as I waited, “What do your magical eyes see?”
“Technically speaking, they are not eyes. It is merely a sympathetic resonance between the talismans—”
“Dire was actually misquoting Tolkien to make a joke, there. But seriously, is Thirteenth Chain in position?” Without the Chorus and their infiltration, we’d had to enlist the Chain in our schemes. Fortunately, his role was simple: ride into the city, pretend to be on business, and go get a good look at the anomaly. What he didn’t know was that the ‘protective ward’ we’d given him was actually a charm that let Khalid see what he saw. It worked through alchemy, which evidently didn’t give three shits about electromagnetic interference.
“Almost. I see a great foundry.”
“That explains the smoke above it. And th
e city in general. Industrial age-style foundry?”
“No. Perhaps something you would have seen in the seventeen hundreds. Kilns, lots of kilns, lots of demons and Damned hauling loads from... hang on.”
“What?”
“The river. The center of the anomaly is the river. There are great, grinding stones here, damming the flow and literally crushing the blood between them. Why?”
I gnawed my lip. “Mills, maybe? Powering the foundry?”
“There may be mechanisms that required power, but I have not seen them. Still, Thirteenth Chain is on the outside of the compound, looking in, and there are many buildings. It is possible that there may be mechanisms I do not see, beyond the wheel.”
“The wheel?”
“The two stones are cylinders, and the force of the river’s flow, I think, pushes them. Stone gears go from them to a large wheel, just below the bloodfall. There are many small demons on the other side of it, with bags. They are turning it, it seems, and doing something with the bags. Ah, they are out of sight, sorry.”
I needed more intel. This thing would be a problem. It would throw off my particle beams, cause hell with my gravitics, and render my best sensors useless if I got too close.
Still, it was only one thing among a host of other issues.
About six of those issues darted up over the side of Beaky, grabbed me, and hurled me out into the open air.
While I’d pondered, the flying fiends had evidently decided to see if I bounced.
Cute, but futile. I activated the suit’s gravitics, compensated for the anomaly, and straightened up in midair, dusting myself off with a complete lack of concern for the thirty other demons milling about below me, who had evidently planned to try to filet me on the way down.
Now all of them stared in shock, as I blinked the code that turned my mask’s hollow eyesockets a fiery, glowing red. “YOU ARE BEGINNING TO BORE HER,” I told them in their own tongue, clenching my gauntlets and letting sparking emissions crackle golden as I flared the particle beams at half-percent charge... just enough to make a threatening halo.
DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6) Page 7