Blood and Tempest

by Jon Skovron

  The Black Rose nodded. “Moxy Poxy, Mister Hatbox. With me.”

  “That’s all we’re taking?” asked Merivale.

  “If we’re going in quiet, we want to keep our numbers down. And when it comes to being deadly, this is all we need.”

  Merivale eyed the ragged woman and the ghostly man, then inclined her head to the Black Rose. “I defer to your judgment on this. Let’s go.”

  The four of them skirted the mass of fighting that sprawled across the courtyard. One of the imperial captains had arrived, and was shouting the soldiers back into a wedge formation, intent on splitting the invading forces into two groups. It worried Merivale to see them rallying like this, but she didn’t have time to do anything about it. The priority had to be the prince. Without a legitimate heir, they were done.

  “The groom’s entrance is over here.” She led the other three into the stables along the side of the courtyard. The smell of horse manure was still strong, even though the stables had been emptied. She led them to the very back, where there was a plain, unmarked door. They hurried through the door and up a narrow, curved stair until they reached the wide, open hallway of the first floor of the palace. Normally it would be bustling with servants in the middle of the afternoon, but Merivale was pleased to see it was empty and silent. The night she left for Sunset Point, she’d told Hester what was likely to come and had asked her to spread the word to the servants as much as she could. Hopefully, most of them had stayed home today.

  “Where to now?” the Black Rose whispered.

  Merivale pointed to the lift in the center of the main hallway. “There’s the lift.”

  It was guarded by a small squad of soldiers, but they were facing toward the front entrance. None of them were expecting to be attacked from the stables.

  “Quick and easy,” muttered the Black Rose. Then she and her two murderers launched themselves at the unsuspecting soldiers. Merivale almost pitied the soldiers. She watched Mister Hatbox puncture the eyes and ears of one soldier, then move on to slit a second one’s throat before coming back to finish the first one off. And Moxy Poxy apparently felt the need to stop and cut off a finger from every soldier she killed. They weren’t very efficient, Merivale decided, but they got the job done, and that was the important thing. Soon all the soldiers were dead and the lift was free.

  Once they reached the thirtieth floor, Merivale could hear a sound like metal crashing into thick wood coming from down the hallway. It came again a moment later, and repeated at regular intervals. When they arrived at the main hallway intersection, Merivale had her group hang back, then peered carefully around the corner.

  There was a squad of soldiers about thirty yards down the hallway attempting to batter down the ambassador’s door. Judging by the gold and red epaulets on their shoulders, they were Tramasta’s personal guard. Naturally, he would have given them the mission of finding and killing the prince. They had served him even before he became chief of military, and were loyal to the death.

  “That’s where we have to go, ain’t it?” murmured the Black Rose next to her.

  Merivale nodded.

  “This hallway’s like a shooting gallery,” said the Black Rose. “The moment they see us coming, they’ll gun us down, simple as sideways.”

  “The only alternative I can think of is waiting until they break through the door,” said Merivale. “Once they’ve gone inside, we could come up behind them.”

  “But they’ll also be gunning for your prince at the same time. Will we reach them in time?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Merivale. “It’s too much of a risk. If the prince dies, we’ve lost our primary advantage.”

  The Black Rose stared at the soldiers as they continued to hammer at the ambassador’s door. “I reckon we better make a go of it, then, and hope they’re as bad at shooting as they are at knocking doors down. If we’re lucky, we’ll be halfway down the hall before they see us.”

  They geared themselves up for what could very well be a suicidal charge. Merivale even accepted a gun from the Black Rose. Resorting to physical violence always meant she’d miscalculated in some way, but if she was to die in this hallway, she’d at least want to kill as many of Tramasta’s men as she could, with the admittedly thin hope that the remaining soldiers would be too few to break into the apartments.

  But as they prepared for their charge, Moxy Poxy cocked her head to one side. “You hear something strange?”

  “Yeah,” said the Black Rose. “Sounds like … thunder? Coming from inside?”

  Then the ambassador’s door blew apart and what appeared to be a giant metal insect burst through, smashing headlong into the stunned soldiers.

  “What is it?” asked Mister Hatbox, showing the first genuine interest Merivale had ever seen him exhibit.

  “It’s our chance,” said the Black Rose. “Move in while they’re distracted.”

  As Merivale and the others charged down the hallway, the massive metal insect lurched across the floor, crushing soldiers beneath its long steel legs. The thing roared and smoked and hissed in a way that wasn’t natural at all. As they got closer, Merivale saw that it wasn’t actually an insect, but a machine. The body of it was composed of the Aukbontaren engine. The legs appeared to be broken pieces of bed frames lashed together. Drissa the machinist sat astride the engine, her grin bright beneath thick goggles as she pulled levers and turned cranks. Catim sat behind her, using a rifle to pick off any soldiers who made it past the massive steel legs. By the time Merivale and her companions reached the shattered remains of the door, all the soldiers were either unconscious or dead.

  “Truly a thing of beauty,” breathed Mister Hatbox as they drew near the smoking, grinding machine. He took off his hat and held it to his chest respectfully.

  “Lady Hempist!” boomed Catim as he climbed down from the machine. “You made it just in time to see Drissa’s handiwork up close!”

  “Very impressive,” agreed Merivale, trying her absolute best to appear calm and in control, even though her heart was hammering in her chest. “I assume by your lighthearted tone that the prince is safe inside?”

  “Of course! You asked us to look after him, didn’t you?” Catim turned to Drissa. “You better shut her down for now. We don’t have a lot of fuel.”

  Drissa muttered something sulkily in Aukbontaren that made Catim laugh, then nodded. She pulled a few levers and twisted a few knobs, and the great metal insect stopped smoking and fell silent.

  “This way, my lady,” Catim told Merivale, then stepped carefully over the wreckage of the door and into the apartments.

  “All clear!” Catim bellowed.

  A moment later, Etcher, Nea, and Leston peered cautiously from the kitchen.

  “Lady Hempist!” said the prince as he hurried over to her. “It’s just awful! Ammon Set has gone mad! He’s killed my father and declared himself emperor!”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” said Merivale. “My condolences on the loss of your father.”

  “This that prince, then?” asked the Black Rose. “He don’t look like much.”

  Leston’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “This is Rixidenteron’s friend,” Merivale told the prince. “The Black Rose of Paradise Circle.”

  Leston gave the Black Rose a lofty look. “I don’t think he’s ever mentioned you.”

  “He probably would have called me by the name Nettles,” she told him.

  For some reason, the prince suddenly began to blush. “Oh, uh, yes, well … he may have told me about … that is, the name sounds familiar.”

  The Black Rose laughed coarsely. “I see the length of it.” Then she nudged him in the side with her elbow. “All true, by the way.” As the prince’s blush deepened, the Black Rose turned to Nea. “You all from Aukbontar, then?”

  “Yes,” said Nea, as calm and regal as ever. “We are here on a diplomatic mission to promote peace and prosperity between our two peoples.”

  “How’s that going fo
r you?” said the Black Rose.

  Nea gave her a pained smile. “Today has not been one of the better days.”

  “Let’s see if we can’t turn that around, then,” said the Black Rose.

  “We need to get everyone in the courtyard to stop fighting long enough for the prince to take command of the soldiers,” said Merivale.

  “It’ll take something pretty impressive to get ’em all to pay attention,” said the Black Rose.

  “Yes …” Merivale looked through the broken doorway at the giant mechanical spider. “That’s what I was thinking, too …”

  The fighting in the courtyard had not lessened. If anything, it had grown more intense, and more chaotic. The neat lines of battle had dissolved, and now the whole place was just a writhing mass of blood, screams, and people killing and trying desperately not to be killed. The quarters were too close for guns to be very effective, so most of them had switched to swords, spears, axes, clubs, or sometimes just fists, feet, and even teeth. The eyes of the men and women locked in this furious struggle had little thought, or even much emotion beyond terror and rage.

  Then the front doors of the palace burst open to reveal a massive mechanical spider. It hissed and clanked, belching thick black smoke as its metal feet pounded down the short flight of stairs onto the courtyard. With the scream of instinct still pounding in their veins, those who had been fighting looked up at this metal beast in awe as it loomed over them like it was a demon of war that had suddenly become manifest before them. It stomped into the center of the courtyard, and both soldiers and criminals shrank away before it.

  “You must stop fighting each other!”

  A man had suddenly climbed astride this metal demon. A handsome, dashing young man with a serious, earnest face. In his eyes was not the rage of battle, but a deep sorrow.

  “I am Leston, prince of the empire, and I beg you to listen to me. Archlord Tramasta and the biomancer Ammon Set have conspired to seize the throne. They are the ones who have set you against each other. They would have you kill each other, soldier and civilian, so that they might be rid of you both.”

  As the madness of battle began to recede, the soldiers and criminals looked at one another with both hope and distrust. Nobody wanted to keep fighting and dying. But could they really trust the other wouldn’t suddenly turn on them?

  “I know this is difficult to accept,” said Leston. “But surely the idea of the powerful and the nobility using commoners such as you for their own vile ploys is not new to any of you.”

  There were gasps and murmurs among the crowd. Hadn’t this man just said he was the prince? So why was he talking against the nobility?

  He smiled sadly at them then, and nodded in acknowledgment of their whispers. “I know this because my best friend is a commoner. I have learned of your plight thanks to him. I don’t honestly know what I can do to ease those problems when I become emperor, but I do know that allowing a coldhearted biomancer like Ammon Set to become emperor will only multiply them. Now, I beg of you, instead of using your weapons against each other, join me in protecting the empire that includes all of us.”

  Merivale and the Black Rose watched from the doorway, as Leston slowly talked the people in the courtyard back to sanity. It was going surprisingly well. Once Drissa got their attention, the prince seemed to know just how to speak to them. It was, Merivale decided, an excellent precedent to set for the future emperor. Assuming they all lived that long.

  She leaned in close to the Black Rose.

  “Keep the prince safe,” she breathed into her ear. “Once he’s finished speaking, close the front gates and get ready to repel reinforcements from Ammon Set from either outside the walls, or from inside the palace.”

  “You think there’s more coming?”

  Merivale nodded. “This isn’t over yet. I’m going to go see if I can learn exactly what to expect.”

  “You want me to come along?”

  “Your people are loyal to you, but perhaps not quite yet to the prince. I’d rather have you stay here to keep them in check. Besides, I’m quite capable of handling things myself, if it comes to that.”

  The Black Rose grinned. “I reckon you are.”

  As Merivale slipped back into the palace, she decided that she was looking forward to working with the Black Rose beyond this crisis.

  She tried the lift, but the gears only gave a sad little whimper, and it didn’t move. They had brought Drissa’s metal spider down to the ground floor with it, but the weight of the machine had apparently done more damage than she’d realized.

  So Merivale began the long climb up the palace stairs to the forty-sixth floor. Again she was thankful she had opted to wear her riding clothes for this operation. Handling this many stairs in a gown and heels would have been torturous. Perhaps even impossible. As it was, she was breathing hard by the time she reached the floor where Tramasta’s apartments were located.

  A man like Tramasta would want to be present for his “victory,” but not so close that his life would be in danger, so this seemed the logical place. Besides, she’d heard from Shelby that Tramasta’s dependence on cloud glass had grown to the point that he rarely left his apartments.

  Merivale knocked on the door, and Shelby answered a few moments later, looking tense and exhausted.

  “Is he here?” Merivale asked.

  Shelby nodded.

  “The prince has secured the front gate, but I’m not sure how long the palace will remain stable. I suggest you head home while you can. I can see myself in.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” said Shelby, and hurried away.

  Merivale found the archlord of Fashlament and chief of military in his bedroom. He sat on the floor with a box of cloud glass open in front of him. He wore a red silk robe that was open in front to reveal that he was completely naked underneath. His eyes were glazed over and he was grinning like an idiot.

  Merivale looked at him with something very close to sadness. Tramasta had once been a worthy adversary. Under different circumstance, sparring with him as chief of military would have proven immensely satisfying. But seeing him reduced to this hollow shell was not.

  “Perhaps you have been overdoing it a bit, my lord?” she suggested.

  “Lovely Lady Hempist!” he said, not bothering to cover his nakedness. “So good of you to come congratulate me on my victory!”

  “Victory?” asked Merivale. “Perhaps you have not been keeping up with current events. I have rescued the prince and he has just brought your poor, misguided soldiers back to his side.”

  “Is that so?” he asked, not seeming very troubled. He took a pinch of cloud glass from the box and sniffed it, then licked his fingers. “Well, well, well, I knew it would come to this!”

  He jumped to his feet and began pacing. His expression grew almost feral as he rubbed his hands together.

  “Ammon Set thought you were only a greedy opportunist and that we could use you,” said Tramasta. “But I told him you were not to be trifled with! I knew you would be trouble!”

  “Your appraisal of my abilities is flattering,” she said. “If only he had listened to you.”

  He barked a laugh. “Oh, but he did listen! Did you think this was the extent of our plan?”

  “No, but I’m not sure what might come next. After all, he can’t use his biomancers until he’s coronated.”

  “Ah, not directly! But he can use the weapons they’ve been slowly amassing over the last decade!”

  Merivale considered that. “Which are all kept in the sublevels of the palace.”

  “Just so!”

  “It’s inconvenient, but we’ll have to evacuate the palace for the time being.”

  “Then what will protect you from the bombardment?” His eyes gleamed with delight.

  “Bombardment?”

  “See for yourself!” He gestured to the window.

  Merivale forced herself to walk at a calm pace to his bedroom window. In the distance she could see a fleet of ships to
the southwest.

  “They should be here by nightfall,” said Tramasta.

  “Ammon Set plans to raze the entire island?”

  “Sacrifice one island to save the empire. Seems a worthy trade,” said Tramasta.

  He came up behind her so that she could feel his breath on her neck. It smelled foul, as if the cloud glass was making his body rot from the inside.

  “It’s not too late to change sides.” His hands gripped her waist. “If you please me, I’ll make certain Ammon Set overlooks the trouble you’ve brought.”

  For the second time today, Merivale was forced to resort to violence. Really, it was quite vexing. But she couldn’t see any other way out of this situation, and she doubted there would be any mechanical spiders leaping out to save her this time.

  “Can I tell you a secret, my lord?” she asked as she began to slowly unbutton her blouse. “Something not a single living soul knows?”

  “Oh yes, my lady,” he murmured, pressing closer to her.

  “My breasts are not as large as they appear. I wear a harness that pushes them up to create the alluring cleavage you and many others find so enjoyable to gaze upon.”

  “W-w-what?”

  “It’s terribly uncomfortable,” she admitted. “But it does make room for the small, snub-nosed, single-shot pistol I keep holstered there at all times. An advantage that has saved both my pride and my life several times now.”

  Then she turned and shot him in the chest.

  He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing for a moment before he dropped to the ground. She allowed herself the small satisfaction of watching him die. Then she turned back to the window.

  Remain in the palace and brave the horrors of biomancery, or escape into the streets and the inevitable rain of fire that was to come. Merivale was not accustomed to having such limited options to work with. Nor was she used to having such a low chance of success.

  “Very well played, my lord,” she told the corpse of Tramasta. “I suppose it’s possible I’ll be joining you in some hell or other shortly. You’ll forgive me if I don’t give up quite yet, though.”