Clockwork Secrets

by Dru Pagliassotti

  Clockwork Secrets: Heavy Fire

  by Dru Pagliassotti

  Copyright © 2014 by Dru Pagliassotti

  E-Book Edition

  Published by

  EDGE Science Fiction and

  Fantasy Publishing

  An Imprint of

  HADES PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  CALGARY

  Notice

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  * * * * *

  This book is also available in print

  * * * * *

  Dedication

  To Dad and Nancy.

  * * * * *

  Chapter One

  The rifles’ percussion rang in Taya’s ears and a cloud of acrid gunpowder drifted through the air. Blood trickled over the snow-powdered courtyard.

  She wished she were home.

  “There, Ambassador.” Il Re Quintilio Agosti waved a hand toward the bodies. “I trust you will assure your decaturs that Alzana has brought its traitorous officers to justice.”

  Cristof’s silk-covered fingers tightened on Taya’s arm.

  A year ago, watching men being executed would have made Taya sick. Now what made her sick was its pointlessness. Nobody in the small prison courtyard believed that the dead men had masterminded the invasion, and nobody believed their deaths would prevent a war between Alzana and Ondinium. The two nations enacted their thousand-year-old script like creaking automata in a traveling stage show, each line and gesture predetermined.

  “Are we finished here, Your Majesty?” she asked, her words tasting like ash.

  A small smile played beneath Agosti’s well-groomed beard. He knew she was disgusted, and he took pleasure from the knowledge. It was the only pleasure he’d get from their assembly. Cristof’s emotions were unreadable beneath his ivory mask, and Lieutenant Amcathra and his lictors would be content to stand in the snow for hours if it meant watching more Alzanans die.

  “Would the ambassador like to see more?” Agosti countered. “I could arrange to have other criminals brought before the firing squad, if it would amuse him.”

  Taya tensed. Cristof tapped her forearm.

  Enough.

  “The ambassador has seen enough,” she said, her voice tight. “These executions weren’t among our demands.”

  “But they were necessary, nevertheless.” The king’s expression remained complacent. “A lesson, if you will.”

  For whom? Taya wondered. She glanced past the king toward the sullen-looking group of aristocrats who’d accompanied them, her gaze inexorably drawn to the cold, hostile glare of Lady Fosca Mazzoletti.

  Fosca noted Taya’s inspection and her lips pulled back in a grim, humorless smile. There was no way the woman could know that Lieutenant Amcathra had killed her twin brother, Gaio, to save Taya and Cristof, but it was clear that she suspected something. Taya looked away, pulling her heavy fur cloak closer around her shoulders. The other nobles’ cold, flat expressions offered no relief. Even the soldiers in the execution squad seemed resentful as they shouldered their rifles.

  King Agosti’s middle-aged daughter, Rosa, and his sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Liliana, huddled a little apart from the rest of the group. His thirteen-year-old grandson, Pio, studied the corpses with morbid fascination. The young principe was still in school, but the brass buttons and military cut of his coat indicated that he’d eventually follow his oldest sister into the army. That sister, Major Pietra Agosti, hadn’t attended the execution; she was away with her company. Meanwhile, the king’s youngest grandson, Silvio, lay in bed with a cold.

  Il Re Agosti glanced at the sky. “It’s starting to snow again. If the ambassador doesn’t wish to see more, we should return to the palace.”

  Cristof’s fingers moved. King meet me after.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.” Taya said. “The ambassador hopes to resume our talks this evening. We have much left to discuss.”

  “Yes, we do, but surely we wouldn’t want to disturb our digestion with business.” The king patted her arm with careless intimacy. “We’ll resume our talks tomorrow.”

  Say Council end talk soon.

  “As you wish,” she said, hiding her distaste. “However, the ambassador wishes to remind you that the Council will grow impatient if we don’t reach an agreement soon. The decaturs acquiesced to this truce at your request, Your Majesty, but their deadline is almost upon us.”

  “Indeed, indeed.” The king laughed, but no amusement reached his eyes. He leaned closer. “Now that my enemies know where I stand, we should be able to proceed more expeditiously.”

  Taya reviewed his words twice before deciding that they weren’t a threat. Not to her, anyway. She reassessed the hostile expressions on the Family leaders’ faces.

  What? Cristof inquired.

  “The ambassador is pleased to hear that, Your Majesty,” she said, shooting her husband a neutral look. “We look forward to discussing the situation with you tomorrow morning.”

  “Splendid.” The king’s expression collapsed into a sneer as he turned and regarded his entourage. “Sergeant! We are finished.”

  The sergeant barked orders. His men saluted the king and marched off, leaving the corpses behind.

  “Ambassador.” Il Re Agosti gestured to the line of towering steam-powered carriages waiting on the parkway before turning to his family.

  Taya repeated the king’s comment to Cristof as they began their slow walk across the snow-covered cobblestones. Lieutenant Amcathra remained beside them as his seven lictors ran ahead.

  You trust him? Cristof tapped as they reached the carriages. The lictors were scrutinizing the steam engine’s dials and checking their readouts against a chart. Il Re Agosti considered the tall, smoke-bellowing carriages standout symbols of Alzanan’s modernity, but Amcathra monitored their operation with open suspicion.

  “No, not really,” Taya said, waiting for the lictors to let them enter. The Alzanans were already climbing ladders up to their Family carriages. The royal carriage was particularly tall and ornate, painted silver and sky-blue and surrounded by flamboyantly uniformed Alzanan soldiers standing at attention.

  “Today’s demonstration may have been intended to intimidate dissenters,” Amcathra speculated, his rifle cradled in the crook of one arm. “Several of the executed officers belonged to Families in attendance.”

  Cristof’s fingers moved. Dangerous.

  “He says that sounds dangerous.”

  “Indeed.” Amcathra inspected the chart and allowed his lictors to lean a ladder against the coach’s towering eight-foot-tall wheels. “Exalted.”

  Taya helped Cristof climb and slid into the cabin beside him. Amcathra closed the door as his lictors secured the ladder beneath the vehicle.

  Taya drew the curtains and untied Cristof’s blank-featured ivory mask. She smiled at her husband’s thin, careworn features and pale gray eyes and brushed a wayward strand of black hair away from his forehead. When he wasn’t wearing his glasses, the new scars around his left eye were clearly visible.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Less pleased than I ought to be, considering there are five fewer Alzanan officers in the world.” He rubbed his face against a silk-covered shoulder. The coach jerked into motion, shaking and rumbling over the c
obblestones. “What about you?”

  “I’m all right.” Her smile faded. “I must be getting used to violence.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I hope the king is finally planning to settle down to our negotiations,” she said, avoiding the compassion in her husband’s eyes. “I’m ready to leave Alzana.”

  “One way or the other, we’ll be gone soon.” He rested a fabric-draped hand over his ivory mask as she set it in his lap. “It’s late winter, and the Council will want to attack by spring. We need to be back in Ondinium before that.”

  “You’re assuming we’ll fail.”

  “Did you think we’d succeed?” His crooked smile was humorless. “These negotiations are just a delaying tactic, love. Alzana is rushing to outfit whatever other dirigibles it has in hiding and the Council is rushing to pull more… more machines out of storage. This war’s inevitable; you and I are just the intermission entertainment.”

  “Well, our work wasn’t entirely in vain,” Taya said, trying to cheer them both up. “The other nations have agreed to remain neutral, and I don’t think they would have if their ambassadors hadn’t met you in Mareaux. Showing them a face instead of a mask made a difference; they aren’t as intimidated by Ondinium as they used to be.”

  “No, nobody would call me intimidating,” Cristof agreed. She made a face at him. He raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, you’re the one who’s done all—”

  The coach swayed as something struck the front panel with a sharp report.

  “Ambush!” Amcathra roared.

  Taya leaned over her husband and tore open the curtains, heedless of propriety. They were paralleling the Capitoli River on the statue-lined Grand Avenue that divided the civic sprawl from the wealthy Family estates. She didn’t see anything suspicious, but Amcathra’s heavy boots thudded on the roof as he barked commands to his lictors.

  “Taya!” Cristof exclaimed. She abandoned the windows to help him pull off his incapacitating public robe. The heavy garment and his ivory mask dropped to the carriage floor. “Where are my glasses?”

  “In my reticule.”

  He grabbed her velvet purse as she returned to the windows and lifted the pane, twisting her head out. A group of black-clad men on horseback was charging down the wide avenue toward them, shouting and brandishing pistols. Each man bore a black stripe running down the side of his face.

  “Lictors!”

  “What?” Cristof slid his glasses on. The carriage stopped as Amcathra’s lictors fell in around its towering wheels, aiming their rifles at the horsemen.

  “We’re being attacked by lictors!”

  “Impossible!” Cristof looked over her shoulder. “The Council—”

  He was interrupted by a barrage of gunfire. Taya flinched and Cristof pulled her down between the seats, wrapping his arms around her. Screams, shouts, and shots filled the air. Then Lieutenant Amcathra yanked the carriage door open, balancing on a tall wheel as he hooked the long ladder to its rings.

  “Get down,” he snapped.

  Taya pushed Cristof in front of her. He stumbled over his crumpled robe and discarded mask, shot her a dark look, and clambered down the ladder. Taya grabbed his mask by its strings and followed.

  “Other side,” Amcathra ordered, stepping from the wheel to the ladder and sliding down its vertical rails. Cristof started to say something and the lictor grabbed him by the shoulder. “Now!”

  Cristof pulled up his inner robes, revealing the black trousers he’d worn beneath for warmth, and ducked under the carriage. Taya hiked up her skirt, wishing she had trousers underneath instead of lace-trimmed drawers, and followed suit. She crouched beside the wheel, squinting through the gunpowder smoke. King Agosti’s soldiers had run forward to meet the attackers. The avenue looked like a battlefield where the riders and royal guards clashed, but Amcathra’s lictors remained still, holding their fire.

  “They can’t be lictors,” Cristof muttered next to her ear. “The Council would never do something so stupid.”

  “Exalted.” Amcathra appeared from beneath the coach and handed Cristof a needle pistol, then pulled a bone-handled knife from his boot and held it out. “Icarus?”

  Taya hesitated, then handed Cristof his mask.

  “Don’t lose that,” she ordered, taking the knife. “You’ll need it later.”

  “I think this diplomatic mission is over,” he said tautly, tying the mask inside his robe. He raised his voice over another barrage of gunfire. “Are those really lictors, Janos?”

  “It is unlikely. Few lictors ride.”

  “Don’t you know for sure?” Taya demanded.

  “The Council does not tell me all of its plans.” The lieutenant turned to the nearest lictor. “Jager, find a safe route into the city.”

  “Yes, sir!” The woman saluted and tapped the three nearest lictors, jerking her head toward the river. They slung their rifles over their shoulders and jogged off.

  Amcathra grabbed the carriage’s towering wheel and pulled himself back up to the roof. He lay flat, swinging his rifle around. A horseman broke through the melee, aiming his pistol at the carriage. Amcathra fired and the attacker pitched over the back of his steed, but more assailants were approaching on foot and on horseback. Their lictors opened fire. Taya cringed as one of them jerked and crumpled, his rifle clattering on the stone road, but several of the attackers dropped, too, sliding out of their saddles as their horses bounded away from the fighting.

  Cristof ducked out from under the coach and knelt by one of the fallen riders, running his hand across the man’s castemark. Black greasepaint smeared his fingers.

  “They’re not real!” he bellowed. “Janos, it’s a frame!”

  Amcathra didn’t answer, but Taya saw the lictor next to her bare her teeth as she snapped off a shot. The lictate didn’t appreciate imposters.

  A high-pitched scream rose behind them. Attackers had swarmed the king’s carriage, shattering the windows and tearing open the door. Taya grabbed Cristof’s sleeve.

  “Look!”

  “Who cares?”

  “Cris!” The king’s daughter and grandchildren were pulled out of the tall carriage and thrown to the ground. They landed hard, Principe Pio clutching his wrist with an anguished howl. Principessa Liliana scrambled to him as their mother Rosa pulled herself to her knees. Their royal guards were nowhere to be seen. “They’re attacking the children!”

  Taya drew Amcathra’s knife and ran toward them. Her husband muttered under his breath, then grabbed the fake lictor’s pistol and followed, a firearm in each hand.

  Il Re Agosti was hauled out of the carriage next, struggling and shouting. His disaffected aristocrats surrounded him as he lay sprawled on the ground, kicking him in the ribs and jeering. With a shriek, Rosa threw herself at the nearest assailant, trying to pull him away from her father. Ducking her blows, an Alzanan aristocrat turned and shot her in the stomach.

  Wails of horror arose from Agosti’s grandchildren. Cristof skidded to a halt and fired.

  Steel needles tore into the shooter’s chest. The man staggered back and collapsed, the mob parting in alarm. Cristof shot again, holding down the trigger and sweeping the needle gun from left to right. A spray of slender metal spikes drove the well-dressed attackers back. Several lost their nerve and ran. Taya sprinted for the king.

  “Ambassador!” Lady Fosca Mazzoletti shoved herself forward, wielding a gold-chased, long-barreled pistol. She aimed it at Taya. “Put down your gun or I’ll shoot her.”

  Taya hurled her knife at the woman’s face. Fosca’s eyes widened. She twisted away from the blade only to find Taya grabbing her wrist and forcing her pistol upward.

  “I am not going to be a hostage again!” Taya spat. The two of them grappled, their feet sliding over the snow-covered street. Somebody grabbed Taya’s shoulder, but a moment later she heard a loud bang and
the attacker collapsed next to her. Fosca used the distraction to claw her face.

  Jerking her head back, Taya kicked Fosca’s knee. The taller woman shifted her weight, throwing Taya off-balance as she muscled her gun closer to Taya’s face. Taya struggled to stay upright. She heard an exchange of gunfire and Cristof shouting her name, but the rest of his words were lost in the uproar around her.

  Suddenly Principessa Liliana landed on Fosca Mazzoletti’s back, screaming and pulling at the noblewoman’s hair. The gun went off and Taya jerked back, deafened. The girl’s fist tangled on a golden chain around Fosca’s neck and pulled it taut. The aristocrat dropped her gun and reached into her sleeve, pulling out a stiletto.

  The chain broke, leaving the principessa off-balance, holding the necklace and a handful of dark hair. Fosca grimaced, stabbing backward and missing. Taya took the opening to swing her elbow against the side of the woman’s temple.

  “Let’s go!” one of the Alzanans shouted, running up and grabbing Fosca Mazzoletti’s shoulder. “Agosti’s dead and the lictors are coming!”

  “Kill the girl,” Fosca snapped, clutching the side of her head.

  The Alzanan raised his pistol. Taya tackled the girl to the ground, flinching as the pistol’s hammer fell on an empty chamber. A rifle fired and the Alzanan collapsed into an ungainly heap in the street not far from where Taya lay huddled. A horse thundered past, its hooves throwing snow and mud over Taya’s face. She pressed the principessa’s head down next to hers, listening to gunfire.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered in Alzanan. “It’s all right.” All she could see was the snow beneath her cheek and the bleeding bodies sprawled around her, and all she could feel was the girl’s rapid breathing — or was it sobbing? — under her arm. At any moment she expected Fosca Mazzoletti to put a bullet into the back of her head.

  “Icarus!” Someone was shouting in Ondinan. “Are you hurt?”

  Taya looked up. Fosca had fled and one of their lictors, Helvi, was kneeling beside her. Cristof stood a few feet away, his concern melting into relief as he saw her move.