by Steve Rzasa
Watch this, Father. Cope grinned.
His plane turned and leveled out. In a matter of seconds his loop had taken him from prey to predator. Now the tailfin emblazoned with Trestleway’s purple flag was centered in his gunsights.
Cope lay on the trigger. The gun bursts tore the TAB fighter’s rear fuselage to pieces. Remarkably the pilot managed to keep her in steady flight—until blood erupted in sprays from the cockpit. Then the TAB staggered into a dive and slipped left.
It rammed into the mountainside.
Cope exhaled. He swung his plane around back into the cloud of aeroplanes. Tread’s fighter was twisting madly. Looked like he was trying to shake that triplane nipping at his heels.
“Hold on, Tread.” Cope gunned the engine and hoped to whoever was in the heavens that the boys in uniform were having a better time of it down below.
And where in the blamed skies had those two dirigibles gotten to?
• • •
Winch hopped down off Maddy’s branter, thankful to get his feet back on stable ground. Maddy was a fine rider, but her mount was by no means steady on its hooves.
“Whew! Bracing!” Maddy landed on both boots. Her revolvers hung ready for action from her belt, which Winch now saw was as laden with bullets as the apple trees were with fruit.
A thunderous boom echoed nearby. It was followed by a second, and a third. Colonel Cuthbert brought his branter around. Mayor-General Keysor was right beside him. “This way! Major Tedrow’s just over that rise!” Keysor said.
Winch hurried on with the other soldiers. He couldn’t tell precisely where along Ridge Road they were. He wasn’t familiar with this part of the forest. But as they crested the rise—soldiers, branters and motorwagons all—he could see why Tedrow chose the location.
It was bare of all but a few trees at the top, and offered a clear view of about a mile and a half stretch of Ridge Road where it curved toward Perch. The rise was on the east edge of the curve. The booming noise Winch heard was the collection of ten howitzers clustered in twos and manned each by a handful of militia. Smoke formed a thick haze as it drifted down from the muzzles.
Tedrow had his two companies of men spread out on both sides of the road. The sheriff’s jacket, green like the rest of the militia’s, was stained with dirt and unbuttoned all the way. His face was contorted by vexation. Winch wondered how much of that had to do with the less than immaculate state of his wardrobe.
“Confound it! I’ll be the first to donate your sorry hides to the Grand Cathedral of the Consuls for labor if you can dig that trench any faster!” He shook his fist at the militia toiling in the middle of the road. The trench was most of the way across but not very deep—perhaps three feet or so.
“Major!” Colonel Cuthbert dismounted. He took off both his gloves and tucked them under his arm as he strode by the howitzers. Another pair of them fired off booming rounds. “What in the nombre de la Consules are you doing?”
Tedrow managed a salute that looked anything but respectful. “I thought a little fire for effect, as you’ve emphasized in your periodic training weekends, was in order. Something to shake up their column. Blame it all, we can see where they are fine enough!”
It was true. Winch spotted the smoke and steam rising from farther down the road.
“Si. But I’d rather we not give away our position when stealth can win us a victory more surely than strength!” Cuthbert sighed. “I suppose it matters not now. Tell the men to hold their fire. Depress the howitzers to a quarter mile range.”
“A quarter mile?” Tedrow scowled. “What in the tarnal skies will that do for us?”
“It will let us blast gaping holes in their armor when they turn ’round that corner, looking to obliterate us,” Cuthbert snapped. “Carry out your orders, Major.”
Tedrow chewed his lip for a moment. Winch didn’t want to wager on whether or not he’d comply.
Keysor moved between them. “Gentlemen, let’s get this solved. Come on, Luis.”
“Whatever you think best, Jonas.” Tedrow stormed off. Winch couldn’t make out his barked orders to the gunners but they scrambled to reposition the howitzers.
“Luis means well, but his eagerness is his weakness.” Keysor removed his hat and wiped sweat from his brow.
“Si. I’ve commented on it often in his training.” Cuthbert scowled.
“Not with much effect,” Keysor said. “Ah, Winch—let’s not have that in print, shall we?”
Winch didn’t answer. He kept right on with the dialogue. He wasn’t a fan of “off the record,” and beside the point, Gil wouldn’t find much of that intriguing. Winch scribbled down more notes on his surroundings—the men in green uniforms, the slow lowering of the guns, and the squeaking they made on their carriages, the smell of the gunsmoke, the baying branters and rumbling engines.
“He just needs a good kick in the trousers.” Maddy drew her revolvers. “Tarnation, Colonel, when can you get me and my folk within range of them track-heads?”
Cuthbert looked her square in the eye. “See to the east perimeter. Where your men are gathered already. I do say their brand of fighting will be welcome on our side at close quarters.”
“Now that’s splendid.” She slapped Winch heartily on the back. He almost dropped the camera. “Ifan watch you, Winchell!”
“And you, Maddy.”
She rushed off, already shouting orders at her motley band of shotgun-armed vigilantes. Keysor chuckled. “Where on the far hill of Nature did you find that one?”
“She happened upon us. Though I suspect Mister Sark here had made her acquaintance.” Cuthbert angled his gaze up at Winch.
“Yes, sir. A friend of Cope’s.” Winch wasn’t sure that would endear him.
Cuthbert shook his head, but Keysor seem bemused. “I’ll have a word with the men,” Keysor said.
Cuthbert stayed silent until he was off a ways. “And you. Are you prepared?”
Winch patted his camera smiled. His stomach churned, but as long as he could focus on his work, he was able to keep the panic at bay. Thank you, dear Exaltson, for your ability. “Ready as I’m able, Colonel.”
“Not for your assignment. For death.”
The words froze Winch’s smile. Death? The thought had crossed his mind but to hear it spoken so casually…“I’m not sure I follow.”
Cuthbert put his hands behind his back. “Señor, there comes a time in a man’s life when he must look eye to eye—” here Cuthbert smirked and tapped his eye patch—“with the Dark Consul, the bringer of the End. He must be faced with honor and backbone. Have you both?”
Winch thought about the gunfights, the aeroplane escape, the torture at the hands of a Cythramancer. And above all, the assurances of Thel. “I serve a power that has overcome death, sir. Even if I die, it’s far better to be with the Allfather in the Unfading.”
Cuthbert smiled broadly. “Magnifico. You’ll do well.”
Shouts got their attention. A handful of militiamen waved frantically at the road.
The Trestleway column emerged from around the corner.
Cuthbert swore. “They made better time than I calculated. Obviously their damage was less than expected. Get those men out of the road, Tedrow!”
Major Tedrow scrambled down the embankment. The militia digging the trenches were already hunkering down or finding cover elsewhere.
“You men! Prepare those guns.” Cuthbert took off his hat. He retrieved his rifle from the branter’s saddle.
Winch took a photograph of him as he loaded cartridges into the gun. “What’s ‘ARC,’ Colonel?”
“My name.” Cuthbert cranked the lever and shouldered the rifle. “I carve it onto each bullet so the Consuls will see and know how many men have died by my hand.”
“You kill for the Consuls?” The idea angered Winch.
“I kill to defend my people,” Cuthbert said coolly. “And the Consuls will reward my fervor.”
He turned and looked back at the armored wagons ap
pearing on the road. Trestleway soldiers swarmed through the trees on both sides of the road, jumping down from the sides of their trucks and their motorwagons.
“They won’t stand still for us, Colonel.” Keysor had a rifle in his grip. He looked like he had a hankering to use it.
“Don’t I know it. Hold.” Cuthbert gripped the rim of his hat tightly. The men waited, fists clenched around the firing cords for the howitzers.
Winch hunched down by a half-buried rock. He rested the camera on it for a shot. His arms trembled. Be still!
Cuthbert brought his hat slapping down. “FIRE!”
KA-BLAAM. KA-BLAAM. KA-BLAAM. KA-BLAAM. The successive shots from all eight howitzers shattered the air. The lead armored wagon exploded in a ball of fire and black smoke. Steam hissed out in a dying spurt.
The other wagons spread apart and returned fire. Bullets zinged through the air and ripped up tufts of grass atop the rise. Militia scattered. The crew of one of the howitzers was cut down.
“Reload and return fire!” Cuthbert aimed his rifle, seemingly oblivious to the shots that flew past him. He fired round after round, in smooth, unbroken shots. Keysor shot back too, but he took a mite longer with his weapon—fitting a man who worked inside an office most of his days, Winch figured.
He’d took a photo, slipped out the plate, inserted a new, took another photograph. Winch would use up more than he used in several months at this rate. But it’d be worth every bit of coin to Gil if even one or two images turned out clear.
More gunshots, but these were from the left. The militia farther along the rise held up a steady fire—Trestleway troops must be coming through the trees. Maddy’s distinctive voice cried out with evident glee over the rapid-repeat of her revolvers. Shotguns boomed from deeper in the forest. Winch craned his neck to the right to see Tedrow directing fire from the makeshift trench in the road. A handful of Perch motorwagons lined up behind it, lending their Keach guns to the barrage.
“If we can bottle them here.” Cuthbert stood just a few feet from Winch. “We might have the Consuls smile on us yet.”
“The plan’s a sound on,” Keysor said.
Suddenly the gunfire coming from Trestleway’s column ceased. Winch frowned. Why in the skies—?
Oh no.
Three shimmering domes covered the front of the column. A dozen figures in black suits, miniature at this distance, stood with raised hands pointed up. The Keach gun barrage from the Perch motorwagons was to no avail—bullets spaaanged harmlessly off.
And the three howitzer shots aimed dead on to the column burst like fireworks on those fields.
Cuthbert’s face paled—and then the flashes of light rippled up like heat waves from the column of vehicles.
“Get down!” Winch yelled. “Get everyone—”
“Move! Se mueve!” Cuthbert hit dirt.
The nearest flashes struck two howitzers and sent them tumbling end over end across the rise. One crumpled against rocks. The other battered itself between a stand of trees. Militia scattered, shouting and firing their rifles downhill.
No effect.
“We got some strangeness down here, Colonel!” Maddy’s voice didn’t seem as victorious as it had before.
“Fall back! Retreat!” Cuthbert wrangled his branter, the beast half-panicked. “Major! Fall back!”
Tedrow shouted his acknowledgement. Keysor climbed up onto his own mount. The branter reared up and bayed as Keysor fired a round off as a signal. Militia everywhere raced for the forest.
Cuthbert waved impatiently. “Sark! Vamanos!”
Winch took his hand. He clambered up onto the back of the saddle. Urgency won out over discomfort.
“Hyah!” Cuthbert slapped the reins.
As the branter raced off, Winch turned back to see Trestleway’s soldiers sprinting for the rise. He knew he’d better keep praying.
• • •
Colonel Cuthbert was loathe to split up his forces, but with Trestleway’s soldiers hot on their heels, Winch figured he had no choice but to divvy up the men.
“I’m headed upslope, see if we can’t get a good vantage point for snipers,” Keysor said. He rode off with fifty men on branterback. Winch took a photograph of the fleet-footed creatures as they cantered between the tree trunks effortlessly.
“Colonel!” The bearded corporal with whom Winch had hidden behind the rocks saluted Cuthbert. “Major Tedrow’s managed to get some of the howitzers in position ten miles out from Perch. Says he’s bound to raise Avernus if Trestleway gets that far on the road.”
“I have no doubt he will, Corporal. Carry word to him—we’ll continue our withdrawal and strikes of attrition.”
“Yessir.” The man gave Winch a nod and sprinted off through the forest.
Gunfire echoed all around. Winch had long given up hope if trying to figure who was shooting at whom and from where. “Colonel, as much as I’m obliged for the ride…”
Cuthbert whistled. Another soldier ran up with a brown branter—this one speckled with white—pulling at the reins. “Thank you, Larrabee.”
Winch mounted that branter. “Easy, girl.” He patted the whining creature between the horns.
“I’d recommend you return to the safety of Perch,” Cuthbert said. “But I don’t think it likely it will provide you much safety.
Winch urged his branter to follow Cuthbert behind a rock outcropping. Several dozen militia lay on top of the rocks or hunkered behind them. They bore an assortment of cuts, torn clothing and wounds that appeared to have been hastily bandaged. Maddy knelt on the ground beside on of her men. The young fellow, bald as a cue ball, was pale and his eyes pinched shut. Another of Maddy’s men did his best to staunch the flow of blood from his abdomen.
Several militia lay farther up the slope. They did not move, nor would they ever again. Winch swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. “You don’t see us winning, I gather.”
“The best hope is that our speed, our marksmanship, and our unorthodox tactics will wear down Trestleway with casualties.” Cuthbert’s eye narrowed. “They want this land? They will pay for it with their blood.”
A soldier whistled an alert. A half-dozen Perch militiamen came scrambling through the trees. They turned and fired behind them as they ran. Trestleway soldiers were right behind them. Flashes of gunfire and gouts of smoke riddled the air. One of the Perch militia went sprawling amongst a copse of briars, shot clean through the skull.
“Down! Get down!” Cuthbert hollered. Without a moment’s breath more, he aimed his rifle and shouted at his men, “Fire!”
The remaining militia on the run dove for cover. Cuthbert and his men poured on a hail of bullets. The Trestleway pursuers were caught flat-footed—the first three were cut down immediately. Forthwith the rest of them sought refuge behind trees and boulders.
Cuthbert cranked the lever on his rifle. He steadied it on a rock and fired. The shot hit a Trestleway trooper square in the chest, sending him broadside into a tree. His carbine spun through the air. “Keep up your fire!” he shouted. “Aim true!”
Winch tried for a photograph but had to renege on that plan when bullets bounced off the rock in front of him. Sparks glittered. Winch blew out a breath. His heart raced and his hands shook. By the Allfather, what am I doing here?
“You might lend a hand and return fire if you’re not planning on doing your job,” Cuthbert said coolly between shots.
Winch glowered. He found a crevice in the rocks and stuck his camera between them. Steady. He framed the scene before him in the lens—Trestleway soldiers charged the distance. They ducked between trees and fire sporadically. Click. Winch took the photograph.
Over all the ruckus Winch could hear the near constant drone of aeroplane engines. There was Cope’s plane—blazing blue, a flash of yellow, its guns hammering at a tan Trestleway biplane. They roared by at treetop level. The shadow from the dirigible armada loomed over the forest.
Maddy scrambled up behind him. She hurriedly reloaded one of her
revolvers. “You seen that mayor-general of yours? I’m gonna need a lot more coin for this than Cuthbert’s paid me already!”
Winch gaped. “This hardly seems the appropriate time.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna wait until I’m dead!” Maddy leaned around the rocks and fired her revolver until it was empty again. “Trestleway spikes-for-brains.”
“I haven’t seen the mayor-general in some time, señora.” Cuthbert’s tone was calm as he reloaded and fired back at the oncoming soldiers. “Why won’t they stop?”
Winch didn’t want to say it looked as if they would be overrun, but he didn’t see any slowing to the enemy forces. Is this it then, Ifan? Am I to come home to you now?
A new round of gunfire rang out. But these shots came from high upslope, perpendicular to the crossfire between the Perch and Trestleway men. Winch frowned. He couldn’t see anyone. There went another smattering of shots—loud rifles. A few Trestleway troopers toppled over like sawn-down trees.
“Jonas must have his men in position for covering fire.” Cuthbert lowered himself behind the rocks. “My field glasses, Mister Sark.” He pointed to a rucksack in the pine needles.
Winch dug through it, brushing aside cartridges, until his fingers closed upon a metal tube. The field glass was brass, etched with complex patterns.
Cuthbert took it and extended it to three times its original length. He grinned as he squinted through the field glass. “It is Jonas—but he’s apparently found us some help. Picksborough men. By thunder—I should have recognized their tactic. This is classic of their riflemen, going back to the North Valley War thirty years ago.”
Winch exhaled. Picksborough.
“Don’t get too relaxed. They might not be enough to reverse the tide.”
“We’re not being shot at quite as much.” Winch hazarded a peek through the rock crevice where his camera lay concealed. Yes, the enemy had decided to take as much cover as possible and hold its fire. Only a few of the braver men dared reveal themselves to shoot upslope.
Wait—something back there, in the haze of gunsmoke. Wheels rolling? Winch pressed forward. Oh no. “Colonel!”
Cuthbert swung his field glass where Winch directed. “Keach guns. Two of them, on carriages.”