Legends and Liars

by Julia Knight

  Kass caught glimpses of Bakar as he moved along the streets, trailing men and women in his wake now, hesitant at first but growing braver as more gathered, and more, until the street was thronged. Behind him Esmuss and more clockers were handing out guns and bullets to anyone who would take them.

  “Time to go,” Dom murmured.

  They swung down from the roof, over the city wall and into the gloom beyond. It was easy enough to move across the plain–the Ikarans seemed oblivious to anything that wasn’t inside Reyes, and so they moved from shadow to shadow with barely a pause. Kass felt as tightly wound as a clock. Twice she missed Vocho’s signal, and Dom had to give her a nudge. The second time he took hold of her arm and breathed in her ear, “We’ll find him, and you can get what you want. He’s screwed too many lives, yours and mine and Petri’s. Not after today, I promise you that, no matter what.”

  She looked into eyes so bright she was surprised they didn’t glow and nodded, still too tightly wound to speak. She followed Dom as he led the way past abandoned farmhouses, across deserted tracks and flattened fields. Get what she wanted… If it was only that simple. If only she knew what it was she did want.

  Her old life back? She’d wanted that once but now she wasn’t so sure. And she’d wanted Petri back, and then not, and now she had no choice. No chance. That was what was missing from her aching chest–the chance to ask him why he’d written that letter. Had it all been true or all a lie? She’d wanted to ask him and see the look on his face when he answered because that look would be her answer. Now she’d never know. And Eneko had robbed her of that–and more besides, just as surely as Sabates had. He’d be up on that hill, Dom had said. Because Esti would head for Alicia, for whatever reason, and where Esti went Eneko had to go. He’d be there, and she could show him just how bloody perfect she was at killing people, and maybe that too was part of the ache. She’d lost the man who’d been her da for good, and she was going to be the one to kill him.

  Vocho stopped halfway up the hill, in a stand of trees that hid them from Alicia’s tents. He leaned against a tree for a second, catching his breath, but straightened up quickly when Dom and Kass looked his way.

  The pair of them had been twitchy the whole way here, Dom silent and thoughtful, Kass tighter than a drum. He wanted, badly, to tell her the truth, a notion so strange to him he almost gave himself a slap. He wanted something worse than that though, wanted it so badly his hands shook at the thought. It had been something of a godsend meeting Esti out on the road with no Kass around. It hadn’t taken her long to brew him up a nice new batch of jollop. She hadn’t told him the whole truth by a long shot, but it hadn’t all been lies either. Damn it, he wanted that jollop so badly he could taste it. It had some side effects, he knew, like he couldn’t stop wanting it. He didn’t care; he only cared about having another taste, just a bit, to feel the wave of numbness, the light-headedness that made the world retreat for a while, made it easier to move, to breathe, to be bloody great.

  He waited until Kass and Dom were intent on spying out the layout of the camp before he slid a hand inside his tunic. Just a little nip for now. Because the trek up the hill had tired him more than he cared to admit, because his back was paining him, because… because his hand shook when he didn’t take a nip of Esti’s jollop.

  A quick slug, the green taste of it satisfying on his tongue, and then the little flask went back into his tunic. Just enough to take the edge off. Perfect.

  He crept forward to crouch next to Dom. A cluster of tents, two massive ones at the centre, one slightly smaller to one side, lots of little satellite shelters. Most were dark and quiet, but the two bigger tents were lit up like a new sun. Men milled around, gathered in little knots talking in murmurs. A flap opened, and there she was: Alicia, at a desk, dipping her brush in a pot. Dom shifted next to him but said nothing.

  Kass moved up from behind, where she’d been watching the gates of Reyes. “Any minute now.” A look passed between her and Dom, and a slice of hurt cut into Vocho’s stomach, soon lost in other thoughts.

  The sound of discordant trumpets came from the gates. The fanfare started off well but tailed off to a tattered parping as men unused to playing lost their wind. Never mind. It had the desired effect.

  Three men jumped up from where they’d been sitting by the biggest tent and went to look before hurrying back. The tent flap was raised and left open. Alicia looked up, frowning as they fractured her concentration. Lots of arm-waving and shouting. A man dressed in richer clothes than Vocho had ever seen in his life–a man he instantly hated–imperiously moved a lazy arm, but Alicia stopped him with a shake of the head. Orgull? Probably. At Alicia’s nod, four life-warriors strode off down the hill. More men rushed after them at a quiet command, before she rose and went with Orgull to the edge of the hill. Two guards followed.

  Dom and Kass moved off together, silently, like oiled silk. Wasn’t that Vocho’s place? Wasn’t that always his place, at her side, watching her flank as she watched his?

  A movement half seen from the corner of his eye brought him up short, leaving them to go on. Not like they needed him, really, especially as he was. There, in a deeper shadow behind Alicia’s tent. A movement, another, someone unfolding like a pocket knife. Someone bringing out a heavy palla that could chop a man in two. Someone who, when he turned his face, had only a nub of a nose left amid ritual scars. Vocho had a very powerful need for another nip right now.

  A glance told him the worst. Kass and Dom hadn’t seen the life-warrior and were too far away for him to call without being overheard, without sending the whole plan, sketchy as it was, to shit.

  OK, now come on. You’re Vocho the Great, remember? Vocho the wonderful, the unbeatable, who thrashes everyone he fights with style and panache, who drips glory. You always tell everyone.

  Yes, but I was lying. I’m good, I’m great, but this might be a step too far.

  The life-warrior’s gaze locked on his, flicked back to Kass and Dom and back again with the tiniest shrug of his shoulders. The heavy blade hummed as he twirled it.

  Think of the glory, Voch.

  Fuck the glory. I want to live!

  Then there was no time. The warrior was on him with a leap and a growl, the heavy blade battering his, numbing his arm and sending him sprawling. Vocho rolled with the movement and popped back up again, doubly wary, ready for anything despite the ache of his back through the numb of the jollop.

  Icthian style was the only way to beat this bastard. Vocho kept his sword up, his feet ready, eyes on the warrior as he moved to one side. Icthian was always better if you had something in the other hand. He groped around and came up with nothing, then had to duck the blade coming round at head height. A quick thrust was all he had time for before the warrior was gone again, out of reach. And the man had a lot of reach, far more than Vocho.

  He came again, and Vocho darted away–if that blade caught his one too many times, he wouldn’t have a sword left. He scrabbled around with his other hand. Still nothing, only the slippery wall of a tent. Away behind him came a sudden uproar, a scream, the sound of two blades clashing, the smell of cooking blood. All the glory was happening over there, not here in the dark between two tents. This time he wasn’t fighting for a bit of adulation, this time he was fighting just to live.

  A crashing elbow arrowed for his face the same time as the blade came for his side. He slashed at the elbow, felt the sword bite into skin and a warm splash of blood, but caught the edge of the palla on his hip and was knocked back into the tent.

  The warrior dipped back into the dark, blade humming as he considered his next move. Vocho put a hand to his hip–it came away bloody and a stabbing throb worked its way out from the bone–and wondered what the hells he was going to do when the bastard came again.

  Kass moved forward with Dom to the edge of the light. The trumpets down on the plain had stopped, replaced with the clanking whirr of two dozen gods marching in time.

  Orgull and Alicia stared
down, he in a fit of rage, she with cool detachment.

  “What’s happening?” Orgull demanded. “You there, signals. I want to know—”

  “Flags don’t work in the dark, you idiot,” Alicia snapped. “Here, let’s shed a little light on the matter.”

  Her pot and brush came out. A quick dart of her fingers, the slash of blood on paper and a murmured word. A light brighter than the sun flashed out over the plain, searing Kass’s eyes so she had to look away before it faded to bearable.

  “What in—” Orgull began.

  “Clockwork hearts, he said.” Alicia snapped her brush in two. “Clockwork hearts for clockwork gods.”

  Down on the plain the gods were clearly visible, moving through the Ikarans serenely if fatally. Men ran at them, hacked at them, beat on them with their fists, but the automatons were impassive, impervious. Behind them came the men and women of Reyes. The crack of bullets echoed up to the hill.

  Kass glanced over at Dom, to find he wasn’t there. She cast around wildly. Orgull and Alicia’s guards had disappeared. Then she spotted a pair of feet sticking out from behind a tent and Dom oiled back round it, dusting his cuffs. He caught her eye, inclined his head in a “Shall we?” and drew his sword.

  Orgull and Alicia seemed oblivious to the loss of their guards, still arguing over what was happening down on the plain and what to do about it. Then Alicia’s scalpel flashed, and the king fell with a comically surprised look, scrabbling at his throat.

  “Your mistake,” Alicia said softly, “was thinking I ever cared about what you wanted, or taking over Reyes.” She bent down, dipped her broken paintbrush into the blood that soaked his rich robes and smiled sadly at him. “But you did very well, if that helps. Eneko can’t fail to give me what I want with his precious city at my mercy, and that will be just as soon as I deal with these automatons.”

  She brushed blood over Orgull’s face, tenderly almost, and said a word. The Ikaran king’s still-twitching body flew up into the air, twirled like a ballerina and flew towards where Dom hid in the shadows. He went down in a tangle of limbs and blood.

  “And your mistake,” Alicia said, “was thinking I wouldn’t know you were there. And the lovely Kass, if I’m not mistaken? Ah yes, I thought so. Where is your ridiculous brother?” She cocked her head. “I see. Gerlar is playing with him. Come on then, Narcis, Jokin, Dom, whatever you like to call yourself now. Out of the shadows and into the light. You too, Kass. And make no mistake, I have plenty of blood at my disposal, should I need it.”

  Dom disentangled himself from the body of Orgull and stood up, adjusting a crease in his bloodstained tunic as though at a picnic. He carefully avoided looking at either Kass or Alicia.

  “I can get what you want,” he said. “The same thing I want, have been trying to get.” He looked up finally, and the look in his eyes gave Kass the shivers. Deadly serious, more serious than she’d ever seen him. Yet his face was crumpled, vulnerable. “I never gave up trying. We can get her, find her. If you stop this now. Please, Cee. I want the same thing you do. I always did.”

  The change in Alicia was instant, from ice cool to spitting feathers. The hand with the brush came up, and she flicked blood at Dom, droplets splattering on his face and bringing a hiss of pain. “Lies. You always lied. You’re lying now, aren’t you, like you lied to dear Kass here? I’d bet my blood on it. I listened to you before, and look where it got me–childless, alone, hated, ostracised. Until I met Sabates. He did that for me at least. Though maybe I should thank you because without you I’d never have discovered I can do this.”

  The scalpel appeared in her other hand, a flash in the light, and she threw it. Dom ducked, but the scalpel followed, swerving in mid-air, drops of Orgull’s blood flying from it.

  Kass hesitated no longer. Her sword was out, the knife in her other hand as she went for Alicia’s back. Not a killing blow, not yet, for Dom’s sake. Even now she could hear him, warning her to leave Alicia, leave her. But Kass was beyond reason, tied up with grief and rage and hate, and this woman, she’d been part of it, part of everything that had been done to Petri, to Voch, to Dom, to herself.

  The hilt of her knife took Alicia in the base of the neck, sending her sprawling to the ground, but she was quicker than she had any right to be, was up and going for Kass in the blink of an eye. Not with any weapon, but with blood on her hands, which was more terrifying than any sword.

  Shut her up, got to shut her up, was all Kass could think. The smell of cooking blood overpowered everything else as it splashed over her face, blinding her. She lashed out with the sword at where Alicia should be, where she could hear her. The blade connected with thin air, and the blood on her face tightened, moving into her nose, her mouth, stopping her breath, making her gag with the stench.

  “Stupid woman,” Alicia hissed. “Don’t you want Eneko dead too? Leave me to it, and you’ll have your revenge for poor Petri. Eneko will be a hundred pieces of meat when I’ve finished with him, just as soon as he tells me what I need to know.”

  Another word, and needles of pain lanced into Kacha, skewered her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, dropping her to her knees. A last desperate slash with the sword connected with nothing. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.

  Vocho peered out from the slash he’d made in the tent wall. The bastard was still out there, somewhere. He could hear the hum of the blade as the life-warrior swung it but was never quite sure which direction the sound was coming from. A hiss was his only warning when the palla came through the fabric a scant inch from Vocho’s head.

  This had stopped being funny, if it ever was.

  The cocky bastard was playing him, he was sure of it. Mainly because it was the sort of thing he’d do, given the chance and a sufficiently crap opponent. That stung him into action. Vocho a crap opponent!

  The blade withdrew, but Vocho was already moving, smashing one shoulder into the tent wall where the life-warrior had to be. A whooshing grunt and the feel of heavy flesh was his reward. He didn’t stop to crow about it, for once, but ripped at the slash and widened it, launched himself through, leading with the sword, and caught the bugger a good one right in the sword shoulder.

  It didn’t slow the warrior down much, if it all. Blood ran from the shoulder, the wound serious enough to at least make using the weapon difficult. Except the man gave a hideous grin that warped the nub of his nose and flipped the palla into his other hand, immediately bringing it down overarm in a blow that would have split Vocho in two if he had been there to meet it.

  He only barely wasn’t. He was losing this fight, and he knew it. Vocho jumped back through the slash in the tent and landed in a sprawling mess, pain shooting through the wound in his hip. He tried to stand up and fell back down. Nope, that leg wasn’t going to work.

  OK, your Clockiness, now would be a really good time for a miracle. One of those extra gods down on the plain perhaps? I’m sure you can spare one.

  The rip widened as the life warrior bulled through and grinned down at him. The palla gleamed dully as he twirled it, and Vocho scrabbled backwards, trying to find something, anything that would help. He held on to his sword, trying his best at a defensive posture from his arse. Like that would help when this bastard put all his weight behind his blade. Wind whipped through the tent, sending the ripped wall into billowing waves, a tang to it of green things, growing things, and blood. A glimpse of a face in the gap. Oh crap, that was all he needed.

  The life-warrior had finished playing, it seemed. A last whirl of the blade, his eyes hardened, and he drew his arm back for the next blow, possibly the last one he’d need.

  The green smell grew stronger until Vocho thought it might crush his head. A vine as thick as his leg burst through the rip in the tent fabric and smacked the blade from the life-warrior’s stunned hand. Another vine, as thick as the first, snapped around his waist and yanked him back through the gap. There followed some vicious cursing, the rustle of leaves and a series of thumps before silence and then a fa
miliar face that was at the same time alien.

  “Help me,” Esti said through Eneko’s mouth. “Help me, Vocho, for the gods’ sakes.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Kass blinked hard to clear the blood. It had run from her mouth and nose as quickly as it had come, leaving her heaving for breath on her knees. Not a good place to be with a magician about to…

  She looked up, hand questing for her sword without conscious thought.

  Alicia stood as if frozen, looking down at the sword that poked out of her ribs, at all the blood that gushed from the wound. Her lips flapped, once, twice, trying to say a word, and then she slid silently off the blade and into the grass. Dom stared after her, a quizzical look on his brows as he watched her blood drip from his sword.

  “Get in quick while they’re distracted,” he said in a faint voice. His sword was quivering in his hand. “Bakar knew his stuff all right.”

  Kass levered herself to her feet. “Dom?”

  He gave her a blank look, dropped his sword as though it was hot and sat down abruptly. Down on the plain a series of howls caught her attention. Without Alicia to drive them on, the Ikarans fled every which way, to wherever there wasn’t a god to pulverise them. Bakar, resplendent in his white robes, which gleamed in the light Alicia had made, strode at the head of a wedge of Reyens.

  Seemed they’d won.

  Kass looked back at Alicia on the grass, at Dom where he sat and stared at his hands, opening and closing, opening and closing. A flash of memory, of Petri’s blood-soaked hair on a chair. They’d won, but there was still work to do, rage to slake in someone’s blood. Afterwards she thought she might look like Dom, but for now rage kept her going, fizzed through her like wine. If she let it go, she might sit down and never get back up.

  Eneko, Esti rather, or maybe it was both of them, they were here somewhere. She was going to find him, kill him, and then perhaps she’d come back and sit next to Dom and they could be shattered together.