by Mick Farren
They halted in a crouch, and Cordelia looked up as though trying to peer in the direction of the sound through two floors of cement. Her eyes suddenly opened wide and fixed on a point in front of her. “It’s a raid across the river. It has to be the Rangers.” She suddenly glanced round at things that Raphael and Jesamine could not see. “The last of the Four is here. He’s two floors above us.”
Raphael and Jesamine’s eyes met. Crazy as Cordelia sounded, they knew they had no choice but to trust what she was saying and not to even question her for details lest they break the link.
“He knows the Rangers.”
She started to rise to her feet, but then suddenly dropped back into her previous protective crouch and shook her head. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“I lost him.”
“Him?”
“I could see through his mind what was going on around him. Just brief flashes. He knew the Rangers personally, as though he had traveled or fought with them, and quite recently, too. He was telling them to hold their fire and not shoot him. We have to go up there. Now. This is it! This is the way out.”
“Hold it.”
Cordelia shook her head with almost demented determination. “No! We go!”
“But I’m an enemy grunt.”
“But you’re with me.”
“The Rangers may not see it that way.”
“I’m the Lady Cordelia fucking Blakeney, and an officer in the RWA. They have to see it that way.”
Raphael did not know exactly what Cordelia might be capable of, and plainly Jesamine had not seen her like this before. “Take her word on this, Hispanian boy. Cordelia may be onto something. All that pedigree has to count for something.”
“Take off your tunic.”
Cordelia had all but barked an order at him, and Raphael was conditioned to do what he was told by officers. But she was also a comrade, so he still felt the right to argue. “I’m only going to look like a Mosul in his undershirt. And you’re still wearing those Zhaithan tunics.”
Cordelia looked bleakly at him. “I’m not about to go to war naked, my dear. What we have to do is dump our weapons.”
“Are you crazy?”
“In a situation like this, it’s a matter of first impressions. Under fire, you may not live to give or receive a second one. We have to look like we’re surrendering.”
A small fire of spilled kerosene provided a light at the bottom of the first flight of stairs. Raphael and Jesamine reluctantly put down their guns and followed Cordelia towards the licking flames on the floor and wall. The stairs were dark, but free of too much debris, and the three made it to the upper basement without incident or encounter. The corridor they entered contained no living person, just a number of sprawled dead. Two of the bodies were those of the other women who had been lined up for Jeakqual-Ahrach’s inspection, and they looked as though they had been shot well before the Rangers had attacked. Raphael and Jesamine hesitated, but Cordelia continued doggedly on and even turned back to remonstrate with them. “Come on, we have to hurry. If the Rangers pull out without us, we’re dead.”
A scuffle at the top of the stairs brought even Cordelia to a halt. A shotgun roared, reverberating damagingly in the enclosed space, and a body flopped and rolled towards them. Raphael had never seen an Albany Ranger before, but he had seen enough artist’s renderings of enemy uniforms. He recognized the man for what he was by the broad cut of the shoulders even before he saw the wide, flapped-back lapels and the twin rows of buttons on the forest green coat. The man must have seen Raphael, Cordelia, and Jesamine at the foot of the stairs in the muzzle flash from his gun, because he immediately turned the weapon on them. Cordelia braced herself and spoke in a voice that was clear, controlled, and conversational. “Ranger, I am Lady Cordelia Blakeney, and I urgently need your help.”
The shotgun was not lowered, but the Ranger descended two careful paces down the steps. “Lady Blakeney?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Lady Blakeney from the airship?”
“From the NU98, the very same. You have just rescued me.”
Raphael could not believe what he was hearing, and the Ranger seemed to be having trouble believing it, too. “What happened to the others?”
“The others from the NU98?”
The Ranger nodded. “The captain and crew.”
“I’m fairly certain Captain Mallory and his crew are all dead. I think the last of the survivors were hanged this very night.”
He pointed with his shotgun at Raphael and Jesamine. “So who are these two?”
“They are my companions. It’s very important that all three of us get out of here.”
The Ranger shook his head. “It’s not possible, miss. We can take you with us, but not a couple of additional strangers.”
“Between us we have vital information that has to be given to Prime Minister Kennedy. He is a dear friend of my mother.”
“They look like enemy prisoners to me, and we’re not taking prisoners.”
“What’s your name, Ranger?”
“Barnabas, miss.”
“And your rank?”
“Ranger First Class, miss.”
“Well, I’m a bloody lieutenant, Ranger Barnabas, so you will do as I ask.”
ARGO
“Hooker! Don’t shoot! It’s me, Weaver. I’ve got Slide with me. Don’t fucking shoot!”
Hooker’s voice came from out of the smoke. “Weaver?”
“Yeah.”
“Slide?”
“Don’t let the uniform fool you.”
“Keep your damned heads down. Some of them still want to make a fight of it.”
As Argo dropped to a crouch, a musket ball slapped into the cement behind him as though to illustrate Hooker’s point. Two Rangers fired at the flash, and, at the same time, Madden appeared beside Argo, Jones knife in hand. “You’re lucky you’re you, boy. I was ready to gut you as a Zhaithan.”
Now Steuben was on his other side. He clapped Argo on the shoulder. “You picked a hell of a time to show up.”
Being back with the Rangers made Argo feel like he had come home. He took his first chance to look around. The interior of the Bunker was part charnel house and part blackened ruin. A short way away, Penhaligon was sheltered behind a fallen section of wall, manning the Bergman. Madden gestured with his knife. “After we’d blown the outer wall, we came back to clean out the place. We tossed in a couple of Mills bombs and then moved inside to finish it.”
Slide eased in behind them. “And how do you intend to get out of this killing zone?”
Steuben grinned. “Don’t fret, Yancey. We’ve got it covered.”
Barnabas appeared from the flight of ruined stairs. He was moving fast, and three figures followed him. Argo instantly recognized the first one, even though he had never seen her in the flesh before. “Lady Blakeney!”
He started to rise, but Madden jerked him down again. “I don’t know who she is, but she isn’t worth getting your fucking head shot off for.”
Argo was beside himself. “You don’t understand. It’s them. It’s the rest of the Four.”
CORDELIA
The Ranger captain was kneeling behind a monolith of toppled masonry. Another Ranger was operating a Bergman gun. The captain scowled when he saw that the Ranger called Barnabas was not alone. “When did you start taking prisoners?”
“These aren’t prisoners, Captain.”
“Then what the hell are they?”
Cordelia decided to save time by cutting in. She recognized the captain, but he did not recognize her. “You’re Jeb Hooker, aren’t you?”
“Do I know you?
For sake of impact, Cordelia was blunt and to the point. “You should—you were fucking my friend Coral Metcalfe when you were in Albany on a two-week leave.”
“You’re Cordelia Blakeney?”
Cordelia made a small, heads-down curtsey. “Believed missing on the NU98.”
“And the
se two?”
“Was the nature of the Four explained to you?”
“Yancey Slide told me what I needed to know.”
“We are three of the Four, and the fourth is just over there, with, if I’m not mistaken, Yancey Slide himself.”
“And what do you want me to do for you and your companions?”
“Obviously we need to return to Albany with all speed.”
The Ranger at the Bergman fired a chugging burst, and Hooker waited for the noise to stop before he responded. “Are you the only survivor of the NU98?”
Cordelia nodded. It was the second time she had been asked that question. She did not want to appear the cold bitch, but so much had happened in the intervening time to make the airship, and even Phelan Mallory, seem a very long way away.
Hooker looked around, doing a mental roll call of his men. “If that’s the case, you’re probably right. We haven’t found the bits of your airship for the Norse, but I think we’ve done all the damage we can do here. We should hightail it back to Albany as fast as we can.” He glanced at Penhaligon, who was scanning the dark interior of the Bunker’s ground floor. “How does it look to you? Are we secure here?”
“About as secure as we’re going to get, Captain.”
“Then let’s call ourselves a cab.”
ARGO
Madden led and Argo followed, with Slide and T’saya, to where the others of the Four were grouped around Jeb Hooker. He knew it was a significant moment. Indeed, only the future would tell just how significant. Oddly, and as with so many supposedly significant moments, he felt mundane and normal. He still perceived himself as the same scared kid who had fled Thakenham after being beaten by his stepfather, despite all the logic dictating that he had grown and changed in the course of all that had gone down since. The Four approached each other awkwardly, almost with embarrassment. None of them seemed sure of the appropriate way to act. The phrase intimate strangers jumped into his mind, and he suspected it had come from Cordelia. Was she reading his mind even as he thought? He was not sure he liked that. It seemed to be emerging that this Lady Blakeney was the most powerful of the three, although, right at that moment, the redhead of his visions cut a far from powerful figure. She and the other girl had Zhaithan jackets over plain nakedness, and the boy was stripped to his ill-fitting Mosul trousers. They were covered in dust, soot, and sweat, had plainly come through an ordeal that he could only attempt to imagine. He figured that he did not exactly resemble an agent of destiny in his stolen and equally messed-up Zhaithan uniform.
“You could be the gentleman and offer me your cloak, Argo Weaver.”
From that day on, Argo was never sure if those first words of Cordelia’s were telepathic or spoken. Many would pretend to know, but if Argo did not know, how could anyone else? All he remembered was that he whipped off his cloak with a flourish, at the same time turning to Slide. “Yancey, maybe you should give your cloak to…”
“Jesamine.”
Slide grinned and handed his cape to the tall, dark-haired, honey-skinned girl. Argo stepped closer to Cordelia and draped his over her shoulders. Pretending she was completely unaware of the stares of the Rangers and the others around her, before Jesamine took the cloak from Slide she slipped out of her Zhaithan tunic and stood nude for a moment as she handed it to the Hispanian boy whose name was Raphael. “Here, you better put this on.” Then, with the studied execution of a dancer, she swept Slide’s robe out of his hands and around her body. As she made the move, Argo sensed an abrupt flurry of competition with Cordelia for his, and probably everyone else’s, attention. His new companions were as flawed and insecure as he was, and that came as a great relief. With Jesamine’s jacket over his ill-fitting Mosul trousers, Raphael was the first to speak directly to the other three as a group. He looked at them with grave formality. “We’ve all come a long way to be here.”
The other three nodded, suddenly just as solemn. Without any more being said, hands were extended. In the moment before they all touched, Argo felt a precipitate and breathless reluctance, as if he were giving up a part of himself. Then skin touched skin.
They were locked in a blaze of rectangular gold. The Four had finally located that power that was greater than themselves—or to be more accurate, the power had located them. It gleamed around them, mighty and geometric, but who served whom was probably a matter of individual perception and perspective. The immediate problem was that in this world of golden linear energy and black emptiness, they had no perception or perspective, although mercifully they seemed to retain their individuality. The geometry was beyond inexplicable. Right angles stood at ninety degrees to each other, one upon the next, and on and on in a continuum of compass points that extended to an apparent infinity. The amount they so obviously had to learn about their new potential and this Other Place in which it would be realized threatened to charbroil their newfound collective mind before they had so much as embarked on the journey that was planned for them.
The contact was broken as if by mutual consent. They all knew why, but it took Slide to put it into words. “I’m glad you all remembered how little you know and agreed this was not the place.”
Raphael and Jesamine were avoiding looking at Slide, and Argo wondered if some evil, nightcrawling legend had circulated among the Mosul about him. In Thakenham they had never heard of him, but he seemed to be notorious everywhere else. Cordelia seemed to know all about Slide, probably from the talk in Albany, although he wondered if her impression might not be colored by a few flourishes of romance and propaganda. Together or apart, they all had a lot to learn, and nothing should be assumed. Once the contact was broken, Jesamine embraced T’saya and then introduced her to the others. Argo was about to do the same for Slide, when Hooker indicated they had no time for such niceties. “I know you have a lot to talk about, but it’s going to have to wait. We have to concentrate on getting out of here.” He gestured to Madden. “You want to do the honors?”
Madden opened a knapsack and removed a small satchel charge while looking around the interior of the ruined Bunker until convinced that no more live and armed Mosul were lurking. Then he moved to one of the far walls. As the other Rangers carefully gathered their gear, he laid a charge against a steel door that had to be a ground floor rear exit. “I would suggest you all cover your ears and protect yourselves against falling debris.” He then grinned nonchalantly and lit the fuse on the charge. “Fire in the hole, lads.”
RAPHAEL
Although the charge that took out the door was far less powerful than the ones that had devastated the main entrance, the noise of the explosion in the confined space was deafening and left Raphael’s head ringing. He was allowed no time, however, to recover. Before the smoke had cleared, and while freshly dislodged masonry was still dropping from the ceiling, the Rangers moved out. As they were exiting the freshly blown hole in the wall, a Mosul had suddenly risen out of nowhere and aimed a blow with a short-handled entrenching tool at the head of the Ranger who had set the charges. Weaver, who had his pistol out and already, shot the attacker before he could connect, with a coolness that made it appear as though he had killed almost without thinking. The two men had then nodded to each other. “My gratitude, Mr. Weaver.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Madden.”
Outside, a staff car and a truck with a closed cab and a tentlike canvas cover on the back roared out of the night, blowing smoke, engines racing, wheels spinning in the mud, and Zhaithan pennants fluttering above the headlights. They had all been instructed as to what to do when the hijacked vehicles arrived, otherwise Raphael would have assumed the automobiles were part of a Zhaithan counterattack. Fortunately, the Mosul outside the building actually did assume that and jumped aside to let them through. A partially formed perimeter had been thrown around the Bunker, and storming parties had been formed, but, as always with the Mosul, supply was the weakness. Ammunition was only just being issued, and, when the Rangers and their charges dashed from the hole blasted in the
rear of the Bunker, most of those who could have turned a gun on them were still hurriedly loading rifles and muskets.
The Four were being separated again, almost as soon as they had found each other. The boys were to be riding in the truck with the Rangers, while the girls went into the staff car with Slide, T’saya, and Hooker. As they ran for their designated transports, Hooker was shouting just like every officer Raphael had ever encountered in his less-than-distinguished military career. “Come on, lads, move! Move! Move! Move!”
Helped by Rangers, Raphael scrambled into the darkness of the back of the truck, right behind Argo Weaver, and then, in turn, he helped pull up the gunner with the Bergman whose name, he had learned, was Penhaligon. As the truck lurched away, following the lights of the staff car, a few Mosul loosed off pursuing shots, but, with no time to aim, these went wild. Penhaligon deftly mounted the Bergman on the truck’s tailboard and fired a burst that sent the Mosul scattering for cover.
“See how the bastards run.” Penhaligon bared his teeth at Raphael. “No disrespect, okay?”
“None taken.”
After they were clear of the streets around the Bunker, all problems seemed to cease. No one so much as attempted to get in their way. Penhaligon spat out the back of the track, into the slipstream, and lit the stub of a cigar. “No communications, see? Once we’re away from the immediate combat area, every Mosul will think we’re Zhaithan on a mission.”
JESAMINE
Jesamine sagged back against the expensive leather of the rear seat of the Mosul staff car. She was going to Albany, and only the devils of hell knew what she could expect when she got there. Slide and Hooker were compressed into the front of the vehicle with the driver, while Cordelia and Jesamine sat squashed in the back, one on either side of T’saya. The gasoline burner had been clipped by a musket ball as they raced away from the bunker, but no kind of pursuit was mounted and the two vehicles escaped unscathed. As the staff car plunged and bounced into the night, she learned from the conversation between Cordelia and Hooker that they were driving at speed for the river, where canoes were hidden that the Rangers would use to paddle across to friends and safety. Jesamine had waited years for the chance of escape, but, now that it was here, the sequence of events was moving so fast that she had no time to analyze how she was feeling. Somewhat to her shame, she was reacting to the racing developments, and her lack of control over them, by being irritated by all that was mean and petty. As she sat squeezed in the car, she was gripped by a definite resentment towards Cordelia and the way that she had changed now that she was back among her own people. Now that Jesamine was no longer useful, she appeared to have been discarded.