Twig

by wildbow

  Puddles, ice, trash, crates, lanterns sitting around here and there, abandoned by their owners.

  Not having peripheral vision was another thing that was ticking the ‘fucking with Sy’s head’ scale up in fractions and increments. The appearance of the younger twins startled me, both landing a matter of feet ahead of us with clack sounds of spike against roadtop.

  It was one thing to tell myself to have a plan ready at any moment, but after maintaining a juggling act of keeping my mind focused on immediate cues and useful terrain while simultaneously keeping track of what was coming up and looking for more things to use, I pulled a little too hard on the reins and brought the thought track to a stumbling halt.

  I needed more Wyvern.

  I needed to get us out of here. This was the window.

  “Dear sister, did you have fun?” one twin asked.

  “So pretty, look at you. You’ve made yourself up,” the other spoke. The only makeup I could see was the congealing blood that covered the younger counterpart.

  “Come,” the elder twin said, letting go of my head, leaving me for a soldier to grab. “Inside me.”

  She spread her arms wide, coat parting, and the younger sister stepped through the gate of fur and heavy cloth, still slick with blood, merging into a single body, other people’s blood squeezing out of the golden seam to run down bare skin.

  Think, Sy. A lantern, two escape routes. The men with guns looked to be holding the sort that fired six shots each. Too many of them were young. Less experienced.

  Think, and don’t make the mistake you always make. Don’t overthink, don’t put the brakes on as you think of a different plan or track. Any hesitation, and we die.

  The moment mattered. I watched the transition, waiting, seeing how far along they were, waiting—

  The man behind me shifted his weight, turning his head.

  The moment wasn’t right, but the fact that this was an opportunity made up for that.

  “Sir,” I said, turning around. In that same moment, he grabbed me by the shoulder.

  The Twins both looked at me, heads snapping around. Alert, aware that I was trying something.

  With that simple fact, the plan had failed. The lantern I wanted was behind me but out of reach of the hands that were shackled there. I couldn’t pull away, grab it and make a move all at once, not without him reacting.

  I didn’t have an answer. I gestured. Help.

  “They’re communicating,” the twins spoke, their voices out of sync. They could barely move while they took in their sisters. “They’re using their hands. Break their fingers.”

  “Yes, miladies,” the voices sounded in unison.

  The ruse was up. I whistled, as loud as I was able. With nothing to lose, Jamie stuck a leg out, kicking the lantern toward me. I gripped the handle at the top, and then dropped, ducking out of the grip the man had on my shoulder.

  Twisting, I swung the lantern out and as far up as I could manage. The weight of the shackles threatened to damn me, keeping the lantern too low.

  Glass caught the rifle at the man’s side. Glass shattered, and fire made contact with oil. He and his weapon caught fire. I let go of the handle so the remains of the lantern could dance in Jamie’s direction.

  The young soldiers had been grabbing for his wrists to follow the Twins’ orders. As the burning oil scattered toward their boots, they took a step back, he took a step in the opposite direction, and tore free.

  The oil was spent by the time the top end of the lantern came to a rolling halt at the edge of the Twins’ coat. Two soldiers in the retinue turned their attention to the coat, making sure there wasn’t damage and there were no flames. Priorities, when a noble was involved.

  One twin spoke, “The coat doesn’t matter.”

  The other spoke, “Grab the Lambs.”

  They were already separating again from their uglier halves, reversing the process.

  In a minute, we would have the lightning-fast younger twins on our heels.

  Soldiers moved to cut us off, weapons in hand. They didn’t shoot with the nobles behind us, but they did jab the points of bayonets at us, attempting to slow us down so the group could collapse in on us.

  I’d hoped for more chaos, for the coat to catch the spray of flame and burn. There hadn’t been enough oil in the lamp.

  I’d hoped for a gap in the lines, or a weakness I could exploit. The soldiers had backed up, guns in hand, and were blocking the way.

  Now I faced having to choose to sacrifice myself to let Jamie go.

  Except that wasn’t allowed. Only if we saved two Lambs, the rule was.

  My memory was bad, but I’d stuck to that one.

  Run, five paces to find an opening, before you’re running headlong into a bayonet blade.

  Two paces.

  A shadow moved behind the men. A small object rolled between the soldier’s legs. He and his comrades backed away once they saw what it was.

  A grenade.

  Not an explosive grenade, but still a grenade. One with the pin still in it.

  At a headlong run, I let myself fall to the ground, rolling over the thing. I didn’t manage to grab it with my shackled hands, but I did catch it in between my crossed forearms.

  Rolling to my feet, I didn’t entirely have my balance, and staggered a little to one side as I heaved myself to a standing position.

  While I’d been on the ground, they’d been aiming at me. The accidental stumble saved my life. Gunshots sounded.

  I started to think of options, and then remembered. Hesitation could kill.

  I pulled the pin, and I dropped the grenade so it would fall behind me.

  That done, I charged forward, using the gap that had opened when the grenade had come rolling down the road.

  I had to trust Jamie to do the same. I couldn’t hold his hand, I couldn’t pull him along. I had to extend that Lamb’s trust that he would be as competent as he needed to. It was the only way this could work, if it could work at all.

  The grenade detonated. Smoke billowed out. The vision-obscuring effect wasn’t limited to the smoke itself—as it billowed forth, it covered light. The side street was thrust into darkness.

  I expected to get slashed or stabbed as I charged straight for the soldier who’d stood straight in my way. Instead, I nearly tripped over him. Hubris had him, silent, gripping the man by the throat.

  I whistled, once, short, and Hubris fell into stride beside me, a blur. Jamie was only a few steps behind.

  It wasn’t over. The danger had only started. I’d estimated one minute for the younger sisters to make their appearance. Fifteen or twenty seconds had already passed.

  We didn’t have long.

  Hubris pulled ahead. Leading the way.

  The asymmetry mattered. The tongue sticking out, the nostrils flaring. The symmetry as the group had turned their head, all four Twins at once. Their senses were altered. They’d been aware of every threat well ahead of time. Taste, smell, with enhanced hearing across the board.

  We needed a river to wash away the telltale smells. Lugh didn’t have one. It had gutters.

  I snapped my fingers to get attention, then gestured. Stop.

  Jamie and I stopped. Hubris didn’t. He turned, and for a second I thought he would bark.

  I took a moment to bring my arms down, working foot over and scraping shin against the chain of the shackle, until I straddled it. I brought my other leg over.

  Hubris approached me, tugging on my pants leg.

  I indicated the gutter.

  He tugged again.

  Trust the Lambs?

  He’d given us the smoke grenade. I hoped he could give us something else.

  I grimaced, and ran, following him again.

  The younger sisters were already free, they had to be. They would be chasing us. Tired, but with enhanced noses.

  We made it only a few more houses down that street before Hubris stopped.

  Immediately, I brought my hands to my face,
reaching under bandage and belt. The amount of fluid was daunting and almost unbelievable.

  I smeared Hubris’ side.

  He watched, his expression placid, huffing a little from the run.

  Run. I gestured.

  He ran, carrying the strongest scent we had with him.

  Jamie and I, meanwhile, headed to the gutter. Fires were burning down the street, and the fire melted the thin ice into water. That water flowed through the gutter at the street’s edge, the channel narrow enough that even I had to draw my shoulders together to fit inside the gap.

  We crawled within, with me convinced the Twins would happen upon us at any moment. Water ran over us, beneath us, and soaked us through. I could barely breathe.

  This was what the Twins wanted, I knew. The hunt. The challenge.

  I would have to answer it.

  I just had to stay underwater, freezing.

  It was timeless, the chill, the pull as all warmth and strength inside of me sapped out and disappeared.

  I felt like I might black out. Maybe I had to black out, to stay under long enough, and if Jamie had more strength, he could haul me out, find the nearest fire—

  A hand seized me.

  I rose up out of the water. The cold had sapped the strength from me.

  It was Jamie, with Lillian beside him. Her hand went out, touching bandage.

  So warm.

  Her face so sad, so miserable. From the look on her face, I knew.

  Go, quick, I gestured with numb hands for the house that Hubris had had us stop at.

  I could read the hesitation of Lillian’s movement.

  I stumbled into her, pressing my head against her shoulder. With my shackles, I couldn’t hug her. She hugged me.

  As a trio, we made our way inside.

  The fire was on low, more for comfort than for warmth. Lying on the floor was Gordon.

  He turned his head to look at me, and I heaved out a heavy, sad sigh. He’d been made comfortable. The bag was open. All the signs were there that she’d dug through it several times over to find things she knew weren’t inside it. Or to keep busy during long minutes and hours.

  We took our seats by the fire, around Gordon. It was clear by context. When we left, he wouldn’t be leaving with us.

  Previous Next

  Counting Sheep—9.5

  Something close to twenty minutes passed, with only a few gestured words passing between us.

  I hugged Lillian. My shirt was off, a blanket draped over my shoulders. She was sitting with her knees to her chest, and I sat behind her, my legs encircling her butt, chest against her back, cheek against her shoulder, arms around her. For a few minutes now, she’d been holding one of my hands, intense, like she was afraid she was going to fall off a ledge or something. Her other hand clutched at the blanket, inadvertently or intentionally pulling me closer.

  “I think we’re probably okay to talk,” Jamie ventured.

  “I’ve been thinking that for about five minutes now,” I said. “But I don’t know what to say. Looks like you’re dying, Gordon? Sorry, bud?”

  Lillian drove an elbow back in my direction.

  “You look pretty bad too, bud.” Gordon said. There was no strength in his words. He managed a smile.

  “I have to say,” Jamie said. “It feels like Sy has some unconscious compulsion that drives him to get as cold and wet as humanly possible.”

  “The Richmond twins were out of sync only once, and that’s when the little one was sniffing at the air, the other one sticking its tongue out,” I said. “Why not act in sync? I figured it would be letting their guard down, to stretch their tongues at the same time. Why? Senses.”

  “My point is, the natural conclusion for you is, obviously, get cold and wet.”

  “Mislead with the scent trail.”

  “S’cause Sy’s wet behind the ears,” Gordon said, sounding slightly out of it.

  “Huh?” I asked. My heart leaped a little, seeing him maybe acting delirious. ‘Wet behind the ears’ wasn’t anything that explained me. I had experience. I’d been doing this for too long.

  “Water, Sy. Liquid brain? He’s like water, y’know? Fluid, adaptable, but doesn’t hold. Conforms to the surroundings, or the container he’s in.”

  Lillian jerked like she’d been stung, squeezing my hand. It took me a second to realize it was a sudden sob, soundless. I squeezed her hand back, and hugged her harder around the ribs for extra measure.

  “Affinity for water, huh?” I asked. “That’s damn poetic.”

  “Sure,” Gordon said. He gave me a wan smile.

  “What’s Jamie?”

  “Stone. Eternal, lasting, reliable. Words etched into tablets…”

  “Stone isn’t eternal,” Jamie said. He was sitting a little further away, and his voice sounded eerie. “Stone cracks. It wears down.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon said. “I started thinking about this stuff a long while back, idle thought. It’s not important or anything.”

  “And Mary?” I asked.

  “Steel,” Gordon said. “Don’t think I need to explain that one.”

  “That’s cheating,” I said, hugging Lillian harder. “I thought you were doing the classical elements. Earth, air, fire, water.”

  “She was a late arrival. I think they incorporate metal into the traditional elements, out East?”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said.

  “Helen, then?” I asked.

  “Ah,” he said.

  He lifted his hands up, taking care to do it, and pretended to strangle himself.

  “Air,” I said.

  “Kind of a stretch,” he said, letting his hands fall down and out to the side.

  Lillian broke away from my hug a bit to lean forward, and move Gordon’s hands to his side, before moving a blanket over them, so they were covered and warm. She settled back into my grip.

  “And fire,” I said.

  “I really thought I’d do more before this particular fire burned out,” he said. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling.

  “You’re doing well enough,” I said. Present tense.

  “Nah,” he said. His voice had taken on a strange quality. “Nah. I feel like I was just finding my stride. I had the aptitude, I was picking up the skills, but was still too young. If I’d been able to make it a few more years, get to seventeen or eighteen, even twenty, I could’ve kicked proper ass.”

  “You kicked ass as part of the Lambs,” I told him. I belatedly realized I’d switched to past tense.

  “Sure. But doesn’t help that feeling, like I was given wings but never got to fly.”

  The regret in his voice was hard to listen to. I couldn’t find a response. Things got quiet, but for the low crackle of the fire.

  “The immortal formula that Emily got. A transfusion—”

  “No, Sy,” Gordon said.

  I nodded.

  “If we got a heart from a primordial—”

  “No, Sy. Even if it was guaranteed to work, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But we’ve taken some bad ideas a ridiculously long way, haven’t we?”

  “We have,” Gordon said. “I’m going to use that to gracefully change the topic. The situation out there. Mauer, and you mentioned the twins? Nobles?” Gordon asked.

  “We don’t have to talk about the mission,” Jamie said.

  “We can talk about whatever I goddamn want to talk about,” Gordon said.

  “It’s bad,” I said. “Nobles want to finish us off. Maybe to hurt the Duke, maybe because the Duke told them to. Mauer wants to finish us off because we set him on fire. Guns, fire, and experiments are looking to wipe anyone and everyone out, and I don’t feel confident that the primordials are handled.”

  “They got Drake’s?”

  “No,” I said. “They got four of Old Harding’s, though.”

  Lillian squeezed my hand again.

  Gordon seemed to take the news in a very easy, casual way, as if it didn�
��t surprise him. “Sorry.”

  “Didn’t get that far, huh?” I asked.

  He shook his head slowly.

  “Gordon collapsed, and we went to find a hiding place,” Lillian said. I could feel the vibrations of her voice moving through her back and into my chest. “He wanted me to leave him, but that would’ve meant that he’d die alone, and I didn’t know exactly where to go or how to handle anything if I even got that far. I was scared I’d run into Mauer. I was… scared in general.”

  “It’s better that you stayed,” I said. “Way things looked, you would’ve been caught between Harding’s group and Mauer’s. I think he brought just about everyone with him to Harding’s. Since his lieutenant whatshisname—”

  “Stanley.”

  “Thank you, Jamie, Stanley would’ve known how far along Harding was, and that Harding was the better bet. Like I said, it’s better that you stayed.”

  “If you say so,” Lillian said.

  “I say so,” I said. “It’s bad out there. If we had every single Lamb here, I’m not so sure we’d be able to crack this thing. As is…”

  My voice trailed off.

  “You sound different, Sy,” Gordon said. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Aren’t we supposed to be focusing on you?”

  “I’m not going to drop dead this very minute,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, and I thought he might really expire in that moment, making himself a liar. His lips moved, “Your eye?”

  I glanced at Jamie. “Noble. The Baron Richmond.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t tell Jamie outright, but I’m guessing he’s put the pieces together. We can’t—I mean, there’s no way we’re going to get out of this okay if we don’t deal with the nobles.”

  “Those three need to die,” Jamie said. It wasn’t the words alone that surprised me.

  “They really do,” I said. “The upside is that I don’t think they’d be missed. The downside is that I don’t have a clue how I’m going to do it.”

  “We’re,” Jamie said. “We’re going to do it.”

  I nodded.

  “I really thought we could show up, do an errand for Mr. and Mrs. Gage, and give my future career a little boost,” Lillian said. “I didn’t expect to get caught up in war, I didn’t expect Sy to lose an eye. I didn’t expect—”