Hope and Red

by Jon Skovron

  “What if we run into Drem or the biomancer?” asked Nettles.

  Hope smiled grimly. “Then fortune has favored us.”

  A roar of gunfire came from the front of the building. “That sounds like a lot of guns,” said Palla.

  “Let’s go take care of that, then,” said Hope.

  * * *

  Red’s face was pressed against the cobbles, Filler’s massive body pressing down on him as gunfire thundered all around. When the first shots rang out, Filler had knocked down Red and rolled them both under a nearby horse carriage.

  “You okay?” Red wheezed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Great, then please stop crushing the life out of me.”

  Filler rolled over, which allowed Red to get a breath. He took in a couple of gasps, then looked out from under their shelter. Gunfire was coming from both the Three Cups and the building behind them. Drem had set them up in a meat grinder, and people were dropping all around them.

  The gunfire paused as Drem’s boots paused to reload.

  Red climbed out from under the carriage and stared at the dead and dying all around him. “Traitors!” he shouted to one building, then the other. “Firing on your own people while their backs are turned!”

  “Get down!” said Filler. “They’ll start again in a few seconds!”

  Red wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’d had enough of this.

  “You broke the Circle, Drem! Sold out your own people for power and land.” He spit on the ground and held out his arms. “Come out and fight me, man-to-man, you pissing coward!”

  “Please, Red!”

  Filler grabbed at his leg, but he kicked it away. He saw the rifle barrels return to the windows. Saw them all pointed in his direction. In that moment, he truly didn’t care. Too many people had died. Too many. If he was to join them, so be it. If people like Drem got to rule it, this world wasn’t worth a piss anyway.

  “Red!” pleaded Filler.

  Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed like he could hear fifty gun hammers pull back with a click.

  “Piss on you, traitors!” shouted a small boy who had been standing on the sidelines. He threw a glass jar at one of the windows.

  A rifle from one of the windows fired, perhaps by accident, and the boy dropped to the ground.

  There was a moment of total silence.

  Then the entire neighborhood erupted in a fit of rage. Hundreds of people—old, young, man, woman—boiling over with an anger that had been simmering below the surface for so long that they’d all forgotten it was there until now. They rushed both buildings, wielding anything they could get their hands on.

  There was some gunfire returning, though not as much as Red had expected. Perhaps some of them had grown a conscience. Or perhaps some of them had a yard of Vinchen steel in their backs by now.

  Red drew throwing blades from his longcoat. “Come on, Filler. Let’s go find Drem before Hope gets to him first.”

  * * *

  Hope moved swiftly through the dim halls, her sword drawn and held in both hands. Nettles and Palla followed behind. They weren’t as silent as Hope, but with all the gunfire, it didn’t matter.

  Up ahead, she spotted one of Drem’s men hurrying past, his arms loaded down with ammunition. She glided up behind and slid her sword through the base of his skull so that the point appeared between his eyes. He shuddered, but made no sound as Hope withdrew the blade and watched him drop to the ground.

  “I would have thought we’d encounter more people by now,” said Palla quietly. He had a thin spear with a flat iron point held loosely in one hand.

  “Maybe Drem doesn’t have as many people as we thought,” said Nettles.

  “Or maybe the rest are somewhere else,” said Hope. “Hurry, we’re nearly there.”

  They reached the front of the building. Three gunners at three windows died at the same time from sword, spear, and chainblade.

  “We’ll clear out each room on this floor,” said Hope. “Then work our way down.”

  * * *

  As devastating as the two-sided attack had been, Red’s last-minute warning had allowed many to find cover. Now with the unexpected reinforcements from the sidelines, they went back to their attack with a will, hacking at the door and boarded-up windows again. When one of them was shot, more took their place with even greater ferocity.

  While Red pushed his way toward the door, he noticed no one was firing down from the windows on the top floor. He was sure that Hope, Nettles, and Palla were responsible for that.

  “Remember when we tried to rob this place?” Filler shouted over the noise as he lagged behind. “And we got banned for life?”

  “I thought we’d agreed never to speak of it,” Red shouted back.

  “Just saying. I bet you never thought we’d return with an army.”

  Red stopped. “Return…” He grabbed Filler by the shoulders and shook him. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do, old pot. Return to the scene of the crime!”

  Filler looked confused.

  “We botched that job because we hadn’t expected that safe to be big enough to have a guard inside it.”

  “Sure, took us by surprise.” Filler’s face was starkly pale, but Red was too caught up in his idea to notice.

  “I’d bet every last tooth in Sadie’s head that’s where Drem is holed up right now. And if we kill Drem—”

  “It’s over and no one else has to die,” said Filler.

  “Exactly!” shouted Red as he slapped Filler on the back.

  Filler groaned. His leg buckled beneath him, and he fell to the ground. That’s when Red saw the trail of blood behind his best wag.

  * * *

  Hope, Palla, and Nettles had cleared out the small rooms on the top floor easily enough. The second floor was more of a challenge. The rooms were larger, with more windows. Hope guessed they were used as gambling rooms. And there was anywhere from eight to ten gunners in each one. The first three went down easy, but then it was fighting in close quarters with the remainder.

  Hope originally had doubts about Palla’s weapon. Vinchen did not train extensively in spear fighting, believing it to be a less elegant weapon that was more suited to the common foot soldier. But they had never seen a spear in Palla’s hands. Somehow, even in such tight quarters, he maneuvered his spear with a grace that was matched only by its sheer destructive force. The wood was soft and flexible, and he snapped it around almost like a whip, but with far more power. This was a technique that Hope wanted to learn. With it, even a common staff could be a formidable weapon.

  The fighting was heated but over quickly.

  “Anyone hurt?” asked Hope as she cleaned off her blade.

  “Nobody worth worrying about,” said Nettles. “Let’s hit the next room. If we hurry, we can have this all cleaned up before they even break the door down.”

  * * *

  Blood had soaked through the thick wool of Filler’s right pant leg at the knee.

  “What happened!” said Red as he struggled to drag Filler out of the line of fire.

  “Got shot. When I covered you.”

  “You said you were okay!”

  “I lied.”

  “Piss’ell,” said Red. “Okay. Tourniquet.” He cut a long sliver from the bottom of his leather coat.

  “Hey, you’re…messing your…nice coat.”

  “Shut up, you.” Red tied the strip around Filler’s thigh, just above the gunshot wound. “I read about this. It’ll stop the bleeding. But we’ll have to loosen it now and then, or you might lose the leg. Don’t you worry, my best wag. We’ll have you shipshape in no time.”

  Filler shook his head. “You have to get Drem.”

  “Fill—”

  “You shut up now. I need you…to kill him. Stop…more of our…people…from dying. Promise me. Swear it. On your mother’s art.”

  “Filler, please—”

  “Swear!”

  Red glared down at his best friend in the world. �
��I swear on the art that killed my mother that I will kill Deadface Drem for you. And you better still be pissing alive when I come back to tell you it’s done. Do you keen?”

  * * *

  They cleared out the second floor and then headed down the stairs to the first. Hope wondered if this was almost over. And then they reached the bottom of the steps.

  “Piss’ell,” muttered Nettles.

  The bottom floor was a dance hall. It was one big room full of Drem’s people, all staring at the front door, waiting for it to get smashed down.

  “Behind us!” shouted a familiar wet and gravelly voice. Standing in the midst of the mob was the white-hooded biomancer that killed Thorn Billy. He pointed to Hope, Nettles, and Palla.

  Palla’s face was bleak as he readied his spear. “There goes our advantage.”

  Drem’s people surged toward them. Fortunately, they were only armed with knives, clubs, and bricks. Drem must have used up all his guns.

  “Not our only advantage,” said Hope. “Back midway up the stairs. They’ll have to come up only two at a time, and we have the higher ground.”

  They defended the stairs as best they could, finding a flow of slash, stab, chain. Hope had never had such a union. A perfect rhythm where no one got in another’s way, and everything was balanced. They rapidly whittled down the numbers, but there were still so many of them that even Hope wondered if they would survive.

  Then the door crashed down. Big Sig was through first, laying about him with a massive sledgehammer, knocking over several people with each swing. And behind him came a mob of people who seemed enraged to the point of madness.

  * * *

  Red went with the flow of the mob through the door. As they rushed into the massive brawl on the dance floor, he peeled off to one side and headed for the hatch down to the basement. He felt a pang of guilt, leaving them all to fight. But he had promised Filler he would kill Drem and end this as cleanly as possible. And there may have been just the tiniest little part of him that was pleased to see Hope all the way on the other side of the dance hall. Even if she knew where Drem was holed up, there was no way she could get to him before Red did. This one was all his.

  He pulled up the hatch and dropped into the basement, the dirt floor silencing his landing. He crept through the near darkness. Barrels of ale, wine, and liquor were stacked along the sides. It had been only two years since he was down here, that night he first met Nettles. But it seemed like a lifetime ago. At the back was the massive iron door of the safe. The lock wasn’t quite as easy this time, since it was older and hadn’t been kept up well. But ten minutes later, he had it open.

  He moved with the door as it swung wide, keeping it between himself and the opening. Sure enough, three shots fired in rapid succession, reverberating loudly in the closed space.

  Red peeked through the crack between the top and bottom hinges and saw Drem inside, his eyes wide as he looked around. Red had always been able to see in the dark better than other people. Like his red eyes were better attuned to it. Judging by Drem’s expression, he had fired blindly. To test it, Red pulled a wooden barrel down on its side and rolled it across the entrance. Drem fired two more shots. One missed. One struck the barrel.

  “One shot left, Drem,” said Red.

  “Red?” Drem squinted into the dark. “Is that you, boy?”

  “It’s me. Promised a couple of friends you’d die tonight. Thought I’d try keeping my word for a change.”

  “You clever old pot, you.” Drem’s tone was light and waggish. “It’s a shame you got mixed up with that Southie slice. I was just thinking it was time to bring you on the crew.”

  “I want no part of a crew that helps imps and biomancers,” said Red.

  “Now listen, that’s all a misunderstanding. You know how gossip in the Circle gets twisted around.”

  “I don’t need the gossip. I watched you with that biomancer when he killed Thorn Billy. I heard the whole pissing plan. You are no man of the Circle, betrayer.”

  “You think that matters?” Drem’s light tone went dark. “You’ve lived in this gutter your whole life. The world is so much bigger than you could understand. The entire Circle could get wiped clean out tomorrow and nobody would even pissing care.”

  “The people who lived here would,” Red said quietly. “That’s your problem, Drem. You think small equals worthless. We aren’t worthless.”

  “Oh, yes, we pissing are, you bludgeon ponce. You have no idea how insignificant, how pathetic, how—”

  Drem stopped talking as his throat filled with blood, a throwing blade protruding from his neck. He gasped and gurgled, firing his last shot uselessly into empty space. Then he dropped to his knees, gurgled one last time, and died.

  Red had always wondered if he’d be able to make a ricochet shot. It worked out well enough. Although judging by the ragged wound, the side of the safe had blunted the blade. And he’d been aiming for Drem’s gun hand, so clearly he needed practice.

  * * *

  The influx of people through the front door scattered the knot who had been trying to get at Hope, Nettles, and Palla. It gave them enough room to come down and enter the larger fight that was now raging on the dance floor.

  Hope scanned the crowd, looking for that white hood. She found him in the center. He had no weapon that she could see. When an attacker came at him with a knife or club, he would hold up his hand, palm facing out, and the moment the weapon touched his hand, it would crumble to dust. If he touched the person, they would wither, decay, and crumble as well. It didn’t take long for people to avoid him. Hope wasn’t sure what she could do to beat him, but she knew that if she didn’t try, no one would.

  She hacked her way through the crowd, her eyes never leaving the biomancer. Most of her assailants were so unskilled, she only needed her peripheral vision to counter and strike. As she drew near, the biomancer’s eyes widened with surprise. No doubt the strangeness of seeing a Vinchen warrior in this place—a female one, no less—was clearer to him than most. But as she rushed at him, he quickly recovered. He smiled coldly as he lifted his hand.

  But the Song of Sorrows did not crumble. Its mournful tune continued as it sliced clean through the center of the biomancer’s hand. There was a split second of both surprise and horror on his face, then the Song of Sorrows continued its trajectory and lopped off his head. A font of blood gushed up from the stump of his neck, drenching Hope in crimson. Then the body toppled over.

  Hope stared down at the Song of Sorrows, wet from hilt to tip with blood. A blade that was immune to the power of biomancers. No wonder it was such a treasured weapon. And it was clear that Hurlo had insisted she take it so that she could fulfill her vow of vengeance on the biomancer who murdered her parents and her village.

  “Thank you, Grandteacher,” she whispered.

  Big Sig burst through a clump of people, his hammer slamming into a man’s chest so hard, he flew back several feet. Sig stopped to wipe his sweat-, blood-, and grime-streaked forehead with his sleeve, and looked down at the beheaded biomancer.

  “Nicely done,” he said.

  Hope nodded.

  “Shall we, then?” he asked.

  The two of them turned back and continued to fight. Hope could tell Drem’s men were losing their nerve after seeing their biomancer struck down. Their posture became more defensive, and they began eyeing the exits.

  “STOP FIGHTING! DREM IS DEAD!”

  Red stood on top of the bar, a body over his shoulder. Everyone backed away as he threw it on the ground.

  Hope had thought that when she saw Drem dead, the pain of losing Carmichael would leave her. Or at least lessen. But she stared at his lifeless body, his eyes open and glassy, a gash in his throat, and all she felt was the darkness that always lingered on the edge of her awareness, still hungry. She wondered if it would ever be satisfied.

  She turned to Drem’s remaining men, her sword ready. But they threw down their weapons. The battle was over.

&nbs
p; Then from the street came a thunderous boom, followed quickly by the sound of cracking stone and shattering glass.

  Filler appeared in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame. His face was ashen, but determined.

  “We got a problem,” he said. “The imps are here. And they brought cannons.”

  22

  Red had a vivid imagination. He’d thought of many different ways the march on the Three Cups could have gone leeward. What he hadn’t thought about was how bad it might get even if they won.

  When he stepped out onto the street, it looked like the whole of Paradise Circle had been consumed by one of the more terrible hells. The rage that he’d stirred up had grown, unchecked, and was now directionless. Buildings were on fire and people climbed out of broken shop windows, their arms full of loot. To make matters worse, every couple of minutes, the distant boom of a cannon would sound, and a barrage of shot would rain down on the block, smashing windows, shredding wooden signs, peppering walls, and occasionally ripping through someone not fast enough to find cover.

  “This isn’t what I wanted,” he said to Big Sig.

  “I know,” Sig said quietly. “But there isn’t anything we can do to stop it. It’s turned into a full-blown riot. I’m taking my people back to Hammer Point. I expect Palla will do the same.”

  “You’re leaving us like this?” Red said accusingly.

  “What would you have me do? Have my people stop your people from looting and start a neighborhood war? Or would you rather I send my people into the face of imp cannon fire?”

  “No, of course not,” said Red. “I just—”

  Big Sig put his massive hand on Red’s shoulder, completely engulfing it. “We did something good today. Whatever happens next doesn’t change that. We stood up for ourselves. That scares them.”

  “Shouldn’t we take advantage of that?”