Marta considered this potentiality, already mentally penning the letter she would send to Abner’s wife, Della, as she collapsed upon her cot. But she was simply too tired to act now, promising herself she would escape on the morrow.
***
On the third day of the battle for Fieldhollow, Marta strode to the head of the Furies, ordering them to carry their shields to the front of the Western defense even as the Eastern forces began their charge across the Browns River.
The Western hail of musket fire was a dense rain striking the Eastern forces with its deadly drops. Hundreds fell, but still the Eastern armies advanced through the river, now choked with their dead and dying. The Westerners would eventually run out of musket balls, whereas the Eastern army seemed endless, surging forward like a wave of flesh destined to crash against the Furies’ shields. There would be no stopping them, either from taking Vrendenburg or slaughtering the defenders, and Marta was just turning to make good her escape when the airships arrived.
The sight stole her senses as an even dozen of the imposing vessels swiftly sped in formation through the air above the Kuk ley. Each ship was half the size of the massive Sanct Rosario that had taken her across the Saulshish Ocean all those years ago, their propellers tearing violently through the air. Bulbous balloons held them aloft, the ships’ bottoms made of thick steel capable of repelling the heaviest of musket fire. As they flew towards the fray, Marta could see the cannons poking out their sides, aimed downwards to rain destruction upon their enemies.
The ceaseless rush of Eastern forces finally broke at the arrival of the airships, the dirigibles’ shadows distributing despair among the Eastern ranks as they slid across them. The airships would turn the tide, would win the West the battle of Fieldhollow, and the remains of the Newfield army rallied at their appearance to lead a new charge against the invading Easterners.
They were already halfway across the field towards the Browns River, Marta and her Furies at the head of the charge, when they realized the airships were not stopping. Instead they continued hurtling down the Kuk line and on towards the East, gone as swiftly as they had appeared.
Out in the no-man’s land and out of formation, the Western forces were in tatters as the Eastern army rallied. The swelling boom of Eastern cannons and musket shots assailed Marta’s ears, but over the din she caught what she believed would be the last words she would ever hear.
“Remember Creightonville!”
Chapter 30
Winterfylled 24, 567
Her instructor, Cyrus, would be appalled to see how long it took Marta to spring the lock, nearly the entirety of her allotted time. The other prisoners ignored her, she not the first captive to fiddle with a lock when boredom took hold. But judging by the looks on their faces, she certainly was the first to step out of her cell holding an open lockblade. Her escape now hinged on them keeping their mouths shut, and Marta gave them a hard stare that she hoped inspired fear rather than revealing the anguish she actually felt as she passed.
Isabelle’s herbs certainly helped, Marta’s heart beating fit to burst as it burned off the poison. Her thoughts sped up as well, no longer flowing like molasses in winter as they had under the ekesh’s effects. But it was almost too much now, her thoughts rushing about her head so rapidly it was all she could do to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.
Overcoming her guards was easier than she had expected, the men poised from an attack aimed from without and not within, and certainly not from a supposedly unconscious Shaper. The younger one tried to draw his saber before she left him crumpled on the ground. The older one made no motion to resist, readily offering up directions to Underhill’s house before Marta knocked him silly. He might have lied, but Marta had no time to dwell as she collected her hat and haversack.
The keys she grabbed as an afterthought, tossing them to the prisoners whose silence secured her escape. They were most likely bad people, like herself—people that deserved to be locked up as she did—but Marta had a soft spot for those left languishing in cages.
Outside she found Luca waiting, closing his precious lockblade and handing it over without hesitation. It was only then that Isabelle materialized in the darkness behind her, her appearance making Marta smile. Luca had hoped for the best, but Isabelle bet against her better nature all the same. Perhaps they could be trusted after all—if not entirely in their intentions, then at least in their ability. Not trusting her made them smart, and Marta would rather work with smart people than those with good intentions. There was killing to be done if they were going to save the girl, and she wanted killers by her side.
The released prisoners spilled out into the street, Marta hoping they would provide a distraction as she led the way to Underhill’s mansion. She was glad it was Underhill they would deal with. Countless needless deaths were on his hands because of his mishandling of the war. And perhaps the girl as well if they were not swift enough.
Caddie, Marta reminded herself. The girl with the blue eyes was named Caddie Hendrix, and she would die if they did not act swiftly.
Marta’s rage provided the fire that fueled her now, but it was fading. She was still not what she needed to be, a fact she was reminded of as she turned a corner to run into a squad of soldiers. The two sides stared at each other a moment, both equally dumbfounded as Marta tried to recall the plans for her rabbit legs to leap away.
Luca and Isabelle saved her yet again, the woman’s sling whistling as he leapt into the fray. The soldiers were not prepared for the man and his lockblade, Luca slashing with abandon and leaving them bloody in the street as Isabelle hauled Marta along. But each step became harder than the one before, Marta’s mind slowing down as they advanced.
She tried to make her comrades understand, but all that came out was, “Not right.”
Luca seemed to understand her slur though. “That weed burns faster than ekesh.”
“More,” Marta mumbled.
“Can’t, too much is poisonous.”
Marta’s heart fell as she stumbled on. She tried to push away from the assisting Isabelle to save herself some dignity, but found she did not have the strength. She attempted to summon her old friend in her rage, but even it deserted her, too tired to raise its sleepy head.
There were guards posted outside the Underhill estate, but Isabelle’s sling took one as Luca slipped behind the other with his blade. The door was unlocked, the three slinking inside. Marta was just motioning for them to separate when Underhill bellowed from the next room.
“I always pride myself on being a good host. Come and say hello.”
His words were polite, but there was a hard edge to his voice Marta did not like. For the first time she willingly opened her mind to Luca, hoping he was Listening and would find a way to flank their foe as she stepped around the corner.
The behemoth that was Underhill waited for her with his back to the huge table, Caddie standing between him and the door, an engraved pistol to her head. The man’s eyes flashed as if consumed by a fever, and Marta wondered if he were in his right mind when he spoke. “We were just discussing summoning Waer, and here you are. Was it that you heard your name?”
“I am not Waer,” she responded flatly. What she said made no matter, only that she keep Underhill’s attention occupied as Luca and Isabelle slunk up on him. “There is no Waer, no monster that makes us turn away from the will of Sol. Mankind—we are the only monsters on Ayr.”
His laughter took Marta aback, the man needing several moments before he got himself back under control. Marta was happy at his distraction, happy for the time it bought her until he spoke. “Perhaps you’re right and we are the only monsters here tonight. Us and the other two. Don’t think I don’t know about your friends. I’m not a fool no matter the role I’ve been cast. Have them come out or the child dies before your eyes.”
Luca and Isabelle soon joined her. It was all Marta could do to remain upright and focused on her target. Caddie seemed as serene as ever and
utterly oblivious to her plight. Underhill kept his pistol pressed to the child’s temple as he nodded to Marta. “You’re more right than you know. You need to take her from me before I do something terrible.”
He seemed sincere, and Marta forced herself to take a step forward only to find the pistol leveled at her. “Don’t come near me, Traitor!”
Marta froze as tears threatened in Underhill’s eyes. His face twisted, the pistol turning from her to Caddie and back again as his voice became plaintive. “I try to be a good man. I want more than anything to do the right thing.”
Opening her mouth to try and talk some sense into the madman, Marta never got the chance as he turned his sudden furor towards Caddie.
“Shut up!” The man was clearly insane as he continued screaming at Caddie. “I can make my name off of you, make my name ring from shore to shore!”
“As a murder of children?”
She wanted his attention back on her, and Marta got her wish as the pistol again turned towards her. But Underhill seemed confused by her suggestion, his mind unable to process the act he threatened. “Can’t you see? Can’t you? Look at her. Look!”
Marta was doing her damndest to summon something: her rabbit legs to flee if his finger flinched on the trigger or her sword so she would at least not die unarmed. But the plans refused to come, as did her anger when she demanded it to rise and bring with it the clarity she so sorely needed. Her anger refused to stir. It was burned out and worn away, finally abandoning her entirely in her time of need.
She looked into Caddie’s blue eyes as Underhill had commanded and, for the first time, saw something within: there was fear; there was longing; there was need as Caddie opened her mouth and spoke.
“Mother.”
The word cut Marta to the quick and nearly tore out her withered innards, though her voice remained calm.
“Kill him as he reloads.”
Her rage was too tired to stir, but her clarity was suddenly there and burning brighter than ever before. The room seemed to suspend around her as plans for Armor inundating her head in intricate detail. They were neither what Cyrus had instructed her in nor the childish plans that Abner had taught her, but something grander as she inhaled.
Marta exhaled her Breath even as Underhill’s finger constricted on the trigger, feeling her Breath flow through her pores as it erected itself around her. Through her exposed essence she felt the world in a new way, the air passing through the tangled latticework she wrought. Like veins in some massive circulatory system, they enveloped her entirely to expand her senses.
She felt it all.
Including the bullet lodged deep in her Armor as she took her first step. There was blinding pain that came with its impact, the exuded Breath another sensory organ that suffered the shock of the bullet as surely as her skin would. But this was no rigid and brittle form Marta summoned, her Breath instead flexing with the projectile’s force, absorbing and ingesting its deadly momentum.
Marta had no time to reflect on this inexplicable occurrence as she covered the ground, slamming into the massive Underhill and continuing on without pause. Through her Armor she felt the table give way, splintering under her power as she barreled onward. His skull gave way too, Marta experiencing each crack in exquisite detail through her second skin.
His shattered bones did not stop her from slamming him against the far wall again and again until his enormous body flapped in her grip like a ragdoll. She could still feel his pulse through her Armor; she could feel it flickering then finally sputtering out. So she dropped his remains like the disgusting thing they were: something that would dare to threaten her daughter.
The thought was not right, was not hers. Caddie was no kin to her, and the strangeness of the incongruous impulse brought Marta back to the moment. Though the new Armor had been a part of her scant seconds before, Marta wearing it as if it were her own familiar flesh, she examined the thing encircling her with new eyes after her mind returned to her.
It was like nothing she had seen before, as most Shaper Armor scarcely covered the human form with simple thin lines that traced the major bones of the body like a child’s stick-figure drawing. The Breath could only be stretched so far, so to build the full Armor, the Shaper had to draw it out until it was no thicker than a hair’s breadth.
Yet this construct enfolded her entirely, the strange and intricate latticework covering every inch of her like skin. There were gaps between the bundles of Breath, but it was a far cry from the usual slender extensions Shapers employed. But even more than that, the Breath moved and was not static like the childish Armor Abner had taught her or the more complex Armor he preferred. No, in this living form her Breath seemed to breathe its own, steadily in and out. It was truly unsettling in its uniqueness.
As was the bullet hovering inches before her heart, still contained in the animated web that wrapped round her.
Marta forced her attention away from the wonder to the other three. Luca and Isabelle gawked back with astonishment, but Caddie focused on her with a look that was harder to gauge. She looked to Marta like an infant who had fallen and could not decide if she was injured or not. The right word from her mother would decide if the outcome was either laughter or tears, so Marta released her Armor. It was a jolt like the sudden loss of a limb to dismiss it, this loss nearly costing Marta her consciousness. But she held on to the tenuous thread for all she was worth.
“Come here, Caddie.”
Caddie came running through the remnants of the shattered table, Marta engulfing her in her embrace. Holding the child, Marta realized Caddie was not the only one who had been shocked and teetering on the edge of either laughter or tears. Marta too had been on the precipice and might have fallen if the girl had not come to comfort her. It felt good to hold someone close again. It felt right.
It felt like home.
The sound came from behind them, one Marta knew quite well. It was Underhill’s death rattle, and she pulled Caddie away so the child would be spared the sight. But Caddie turned with Marta, twisting them insistently around until they were both facing the dying man. The girl never flinched, even as he gurgled out his final note. Despite the light of the room, they could see the three smudges that were Underhill’s Breath rise from his body and join Sol’s flow.
It was time the four fugitives were through with the place, but before they could depart, Underhill’s body stirred. Marta thought for a moment he might somehow still be alive, though she had seen with her own eyes as his Breath left his body.
But the movement did not come from his body, rather from within it.
The black Breath did not pass through his skin as Underhill’s natural Breaths had. Instead it pushed through his throat, the skin engorging, his mouth opening through no motion of his own to reveal the thing extricating itself from his body like a burrowing black maggot.
Horror took hold of Marta as she beheld the abomination, the wretched thing slowly rising from Underhill’s corpse to hover above his dead lips like an indecisive wasp. There, it halted and made no motion as Marta felt malevolence fanning from it in waves. Unlike the natural Breath she had seen all her life, it did not depart, did not join Sol’s flow.
“Get back!”
Marta readily obeyed Luca, keeping herself between Caddie and the monster. Luca strode forward with his lockblade brandished as he spoke rapidly in the Dobra language. She could not understand him, but Marta caught the words “ix” and “Waer” several times. It sounded like he was ordering the Breath, demanding its obedience, and Marta found herself wondering if it was true that the Ikus tribe could indeed control Dead Breath, as the rumors claimed.
It was not until he was beside them that Luca revealed all his calm words were just an attempt to get close, as he lunged at the black Breath with his weapon.
Swift as he was, Luca never came close, the black Breath disappearing through the ceiling instantly. It was almost as if it were never there, it easier for Marta’s mind to accept that it had n
ever existed rather than grapple with what she could not explain.
“What was that?”
Luca’s face bore no grin as he pronounced, “The Black Breath of Waer herself.”
Waer was just a myth, so all the great scholars said, Marta having agreed with them for most of her life. But upon witnessing this apparition, she was certainly considering the possibility that all those learned scholars might be wrong. Between the black Breath and her new Armor, she felt like someone who had lived on a little island all her life. She had thought its shores encompassed the whole world only to be plucked by some gargantuan hand to be deposited upon a new and immense landmass. She had no map and could not even comprehend the edges of this new, inhospitable continent.
But the existence of Waer would have to wait, as Isabelle pointed towards the corner of the room, drawing their attention to the amethyst-tinged Breath hovering there. They had seen it before and it heralded peril, especially when it shot away before they could act.
“We need to get out of the city,” Marta said as she took a step.
The strain finally proved too much: the week of running; exertion of the odd, new Armor; and the daze of ekesh finally overcoming her. Marta’s body gave up as she collapsed into Caddie’s arms, the girl supporting her now.
“And how are we escaping when you can’t even walk?” Luca asked.
“By taking a train.”
Luca threw up his arms in exasperation. “You’re a wanted fugitive! There’s no way we can slip aboard a train unseen!”
“You misunderstand,” Marta replied with the barest hint of a grin. “We’re going to take the train.”
The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1) Page 29