by Jon Hollins
“Would you care to explain that?” Lette leaned down over the battlements, spotted another man hefting a ladder, and flung a knife. The man stumbled, then fell.
“I think I would be being feeling more charitable about the crossbow,” said Balur, starting to move toward the spot where another ladder had landed, “if the longbow didn’t exist. But it does. And it is requiring great skill and strength. It is making the crossbow seem lazy in comparison.” He shrugged. “I am being an archery purist, I suppose.”
Lette kicked aside some drunken ass of a Vinter soldier and prepared her broadsword. “You’re not a purist. You’re a snob.”
The first of the dragon soldiers poked his head above the height of the battlements. Lette poked him in the face with his sword. He fell back, flailing and screaming.
“I am always thinking,” said Balur, breaking the top rung of the siege ladder with his own sword, “that purist and snob are meaning the same thing, and are just being used depending upon which side of an argument you are falling.”
“There’s a very distinct difference, you arse.” Lette grunted as she thrust her blade into another man’s face. “And it’s to do with how reasonable the expectations are. If your opinion was reasonable then you’d be a purist. But a longbow is really fucking hard to use.” To mix things up she slashed her sword at the next soldier’s arm. He pitched sideways. “It’s unreasonable to expect everyone to use them. You’re a snob.”
Balur grabbed the next soldier up by the face. “There is being quite a lot of subjectivity in that argument,” he said, raising the soldier above his head in both hands, “but I am willing to concede the general point. I am a snob. I can own that.” He took careful aim and threw the soldier he was holding into the next one perched on the ladder below.
“I don’t need to demonstrate my skill with a bow,” Lette said. “I have no pride at stake in this. I just need to be able to hit something at range. There’s only so far I can fling a knife.”
Someone crashed into her from behind. She spun around. It was a soldier of the dragon army. Two Vinter soldiers lay dead at his feet. Behind him dragon troops were boiling up a ladder and onto the wall. She cursed.
“That,” said Balur, grunting as he swung his sword in a great arc, “I think, is why this whole purist thing is not making sense to you.” He gutted one soldier, beheaded another. “You are already having a realm of expertise. You have mastered the knife.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘mastered,’” Lette cut in, just as she cut into another man’s throat.
“False modesty is having no place in a warrior’s arsenal,” Balur said loftily.
Lette rolled her eyes, and ducked a series of blows from an incensed dragon soldier armed with a fairly prodigious morning star. “Quoting that doesn’t make me think of how smart you are,” she told Balur. “It just reminds me that you’ve only read one book.”
“You are knowing that this is not my native tongue. One book is very impressive.” Balur actually sounded wounded as she ducked behind the morning star–wielding lunatic and slashed his hamstrings. The soldier collapsed screaming, and Balur delivered the coup de grâce.
“Okay,” Lette conceded, “your reading achievements are not totally underwhelming.” She looked about. “Also, I think we’ve lost this section of the wall.”
The Vinter soldiers had given a good fight, but they were outnumbered on a scale of three or four to one. People were being flung down the walls to the left and right. Blood was misting the air and spilling around their feet.
“To the stairs?” Balur asked.
“After you.”
“Oh no.” Balur shook his head. “Ladies first.”
Lette grit her teeth. “Fine, but only because you’re such a big bastard.”
“Actually,” said Balur, planting a massive foot in the back of one dragon soldier and sending him flying down off the edge of the wall, “I have been trying to lose a little weight recently.”
Lette looked at him askance. “Seriously? There’s like, no fat on you.”
“I put it on in my tail. It is hard to notice.” Balur snapped the aforementioned tail around, slammed it into the neck of one of the dragon army soldiers. The woman’s neck jerked at an acute angle and she dropped bonelessly.
“Seems like a little extra weight back there might be helpful,” Lette said. “And anyway, you’re being ridiculous.”
“The weight is having some advantages, but I am disliking the speed it is costing me. It is throwing me off my game.” Balur leaned down, punched a soldier into unconsciousness. “Note how I have not been eating any of my foes today. That is being self-restraint.”
“I was wondering why you hadn’t done that.”
She was on the steps leading down from the wall into the city, darting and stabbing around Balur’s legs, cutting at ankles and hamstrings. As enemy soldiers dropped, she pulled their bodies clear so Balur didn’t trip. She could do nothing about the viscera and blood making the stonework slick beneath their feet.
“So,” she said after a few minutes’ work, “Firkin went and turned into a giant and went off to fight the dragons.”
“Yes,” said Balur, caving in a man’s skull. “I was not expecting that.”
“A bit fucking weird,” Lette said.
“Very much.”
Lette glanced down. Dragon soldiers were starting to swarm up the foot of the stairs. “Time to head into the streets,” she said, tapping Balur’s back.
“Already?” He grabbed the throat of the soldier he was fighting and held him aloft as a human shield so he could glance backward. He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
They hacked their way down into the street below. “Bit of hit-and-run then?” Lette said to him.
“That is always being fun,” he said, as they dropped back looking for a good ambush spot.
“As far as siege defenses go,” Lette commented as they went, “this is fucking terrible, isn’t it?”
“Awful.” Balur sounded disgusted. But then he shrugged. “Fucking Barphists,” he said.
Lette nodded in agreement. “Fucking Barphists.”
50
Falling Down
The stones around Quirk’s feet glowed white-hot. The corpses of the soldiers who had tried to defend this wall alongside her were nothing but ash. She was alone. She was at the limits of her control. But the wall had not fallen. It would not fall. Vinter would not fall. She would not allow it. This was, by necessity, her final stand. And so she would stand here, and the world would burn in front of her, until it finally submitted.
The dragons’ army was still pouring into the city, she knew. She could see them to the east and west surging up their ladders. She knew they were behind her in the streets. But this wall—this section of wall beneath her feet—had not fallen. And while it stood, and while she stood, then the city would not fall. This island of defiance would always beat at its heart.
She tried to breathe. She was losing herself. The torrent of power and flame was scouring through, threatening to sweep her away. But she had to hold on to herself. She had to hang on to the why of it all. The fire had to be her tool. Never the other way around. Never again.
So she planted her feet, and she burned. And she burned. And she burned. She sent tendrils of fire to slap away ladders. She sent it spinning down the stairs as soldiers tried to climb up behind her. She sent balls of it arcing into the ranks of soldiers who were within her range.
And out of range … the dragons. They were still out in the fields outside the city. Still battling …
They were battling Firkin.
She didn’t know what had happened. She couldn’t afford to try to work it out. Maybe it was the Barph’s Strength. Maybe it was something else as well. Something had been happening to him here, in this city. The memory he’d been talking about …
But whatever had happened, he was out there, eighty feet tall, pummeling and tearing at the dragons, and somehow far less injured than he should be. Sh
e had seen the dragons tearing at him, savaging him, she had seen him bathed in flame, but still he kept fighting on.
She felt fire snaking out from her, a widening corona, slashing back toward the wood and thatch of the buildings. She snatched it back. She had to focus. She had to keep her mind on the present. She had to fight.
They were sending arrows at her again. She burned the shafts, used sudden thermals and blasts of superheated air to knock the arrowheads aside.
Distantly she was aware that her legs were trembling. Her mouth was parched. Her eyes burned. But she would not submit to any weakness of the flesh. She was fire. She would burn eternal.
Firkin was on his feet. He was seizing great clods of earth from the ground, flinging them at the dragons. They beat at the air, sputtering and roaring. Firkin was laughing as he snatched up a small tree and flogged Gorrax in the mouth with it.
Gorrax howled in rage, curled his tail around Firkin’s throat. Firkin kept on laughing even as Gorrax brought him to his knees. Diffinax and Theerax saw their opportunity. They slashed into his sides, barreling him backward, dragging him kicking and choking through the dirt, claws deep in his sides. They smashed through their own ranks, soldiers scattering out of the way. Lives were smeared bloody red across the Vinland landscape.
They were coming toward her. Only a quarter mile away. She could almost reach them with her flames.
Firkin managed to get his fingers around Gorrax’s tail. He twisted. There was a crack like the earth itself splitting. Gorrax howled, flinched, lurched away through the air. Firkin collapsed back, still laughing and choking. Gorrax’s tail hung limply and he came crashing to earth.
Quirk wondered briefly what had happened to Afrit. Was she dead out there in the city? Had the dragons’ forces killed her?
Flames roared all around her. An approaching soldier became nothing more than a stick figure of blackened bone. She breathed heavily, staggered, pulled the fire back.
Firkin was back on his feet, but Theerax and Diffinax were coordinating their attacks now. They both came at him, both breathing fire, one slashing at his front, the other at his back. Firkin was pinwheeling his arms like a child caught in the throes of a tantrum. One of his oversized fists came crashing down on Theerax’s neck, snapping his head up, jackknifing it against his body. The dragon flailed into the ground in a spray of stones and dirt.
But even as Theerax fell, Diffinax slashed the backs of Firkin’s calves. Firkin let out a shrill scream, dropped to his knees.
Theerax was back up before Firkin, but Diffinax was ahead of both of them. The dragon had wheeled around, was diving out of the sky toward Firkin’s head, rear claws outstretched. Firkin threw his hands up, but too late. The massive talons closed around his head.
Diffinax’s wings smashed at the air, fighting for lift. With a snarl of effort, Diffinax hauled Firkin’s massive frame up into the air, dragging him, legs kicking up, and up. With a final burst of speed, the dragon flung Firkin away.
Quirk watched as, hurtling through the air, Firkin came flying toward her for the second time that day.
51
Defeat of the Total Variety
“Okay, this time I am being pretty sure she is losing it.”
Lette looked over to where Balur was pointing at Quirk. Flame was spilling off the woman in waves, rolling down the wall and splashing out into the street beyond. It boiled away to nothing a few yards from the houses that bordered the wall, perhaps fifteen yards from their hiding spot.
“You are being an old maid,” Lette said to Balur.
“That is being fine as long as I am not being an old maid who is being burned to death by a half-crazed mage. I have been being very clear for a very long time, I am not wanting to be killed by a mage. It is unnatural. Something with teeth and claws, or at the very least with a sword.”
“You want me to stab you now?” Lette asked him. “Because I’m willing to do it.”
Balur gave her an insultingly pitying look. “You are just saying that because I am in the lead right now.”
“Oh for …” Lette took a breath. “I am not competing with you in body count.”
“Only because you are losing.”
Lette sighed. She honestly had not been keeping count. Though she did suppose their combined body count was horrifyingly high. Quirk was providing a wonderful distraction. Enemy troops would stare at her as they approached, making it very easy to spring into their midst and gut them all. Honestly it was getting to the point where finding somewhere to stash all the corpses was becoming difficult.
It was drops in the ocean, of course. They were more passing time than actually affecting the outcome of the battle. The majority of the dragons’ army was already deep in the city, killing, looting, and pillaging.
“When do we fall back?” she asked Balur.
He looked at her. “Right now. I was literally just saying we should. Quirk is going to lose control and burn half this block.”
“No.” Lette shook her head. Balur’s head was as thick as his muscles some time. “I meant, when do we fall back from this entire city? It’s lost. The whole fucking war is lost. The dragons have won. We need a contingency plan.”
Balur looked at her for a moment, appearing genuinely perplexed. “We have lost?”
Lette rolled her eyes. “Do you honestly think we can retake this city?”
Balur looked at her as if she were asking him whether the dukes of the Five Duchies would shit in each other’s beds at night. “Well of course not.”
“And so where else do we go? Where else do we find an army?”
“Erm …” Balur’s confidence faltered. “Wait,” he said. “Really? We have been totally losing?”
Lette clawed at her face. “How did it escape you that this was our last stand?”
Balur scratched at his jutting lizard chin. “I was just figuring that there would be some … I am not knowing … That we would be being underground resistance fighters or something. That there would be being leaflets, and meetings in secret rooms, and underground passageways and such.”
Lette weighed that. “Well fine,” she said. “There will probably be some of that.”
Balur nodded to himself, looking more comfortable. “Well okay then.”
“How many resistance movements have you seen be successful, Balur?” asked Lette. She wanted him with both feet planted in reality.
“Well, there was Kondorra,” Balur said.
“That was an exception,” Lette answered, feeling reality stepping just out of reach again.
“It was also being the only resistance movement we have been being part of,” Balur said. “We are having a good track record with them.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Hush,” said Balur. His thin tongue snaked out. “I can taste people coming.”
Lette sighed. They would pick this up later. For now she ducked away, waited until the tramp of boots was parallel to her, then stepped out, her sword raised.
“Gods be pissing on it,” said Balur. The soldiers spinning around in surprise wore the red and gold of the Vinland military.
“It’s all right,” Lette said to their startled expressions and raised blades. “We’re on your side.”
“Says you,” said one man, lowering himself into a fighting stance.
Lette was about to draw her knives and teach this bastard a lesson just on principle when she heard someone shouting her name.
“Lette! Lette! It’s me.”
Both she and the soldier peered.
Will emerged from the crowd. He was soaked in blood from head to foot, and for a moment something that just might have been her heart lurched. But she could see no obvious wounds, and he had a manic grin upon his face.
“Lette!” he said again. “Come with us! We’re going to make a raid toward the District Seventeen gate!”
Lette licked her lips, taking a moment. “Is that,” she asked delicately, “a ladle that you’re holding?”
“Skullcrusher!” yelled Will, swinging the ladle wildly around his head.
The soldier had lowered his sword. He shrugged. “He’s enthusiastic,” he said with a vaguely apologetic tone.
“You know the city is lost?” Lette asked. She felt both Will and the soldier could use a reality check.
“We’re still fighting,” said the soldier.
“Skullcrusher!” Will whooped again.
“Are you willing to die here?” Lette asked.
“Yes.” And the soldier was completely sincere, she saw.
She blew out a breath. And perhaps self-sacrifice was the noble thing to do. Maybe even the right thing. But she would always rather find a way to fight another day than lay down her life for a principle.
“Sorry,” she said. “We’re not coming.”
“Really?” said Balur next to her. He gave her a crestfallen look. “It was sounding kind of fun to me,” he said lamely.
“We need to work out an exit strategy from this city, and we need to—”
She was cut off by another roiling wave of flame that Quirk sent blasting out into the street. All of them ducked away, casting up arms in paltry defense.
“Oh gods, I am thinking she really is …” Balur started. Then his voice died.
They were all looking now. They all saw.
Firkin reeled into sight. He was pinwheeling his massive arms, flailing. He was traveling too fast, out of control. A dragon could be seen in the sky before him, roaring in triumph, sending gouts of flame spilling up into the sky. Firkin stumbled back, teetered. Then with all the majesty of a collapsing midden heap, he crashed into the city wall just where Quirk was standing.
The effect reminded Lette of the time she had set a bomb in a gunpowder factory. Except when that bomb had gone off, she had been half a city away.
Quirk seemed to detonate. Flame, masonry, and bodies were everywhere. Sound and heat blasted down the street like a god’s sweeping hand. Soldiers flew head over heels, spilling down the street in a tangle of limbs. Lette caught glimpses of men bent at acute angles, faces distorted in pain. She ripped down the street on her chest, feeling the hardened leather of her breastplate shred and tear. Her chin scraped on the rough cobbles and the skin tore away. She rolled to a bouncing stop, shook her head, tried to blink through the pain and disorientation.