Twig

by wildbow

  The explosions continued, one after the other, no gap between them.

  The twin behind us is getting closer. Judging by their earlier speed… an attack is imminent. Twenty, thirty seconds.

  All of Lugh seemed to be in that state. A blade raised and ready, yet to fall. Mauer had sent his forces out, widening the front line. The ones at the edges wouldn’t be cut off by the steady set of explosions. Small squads, but squads led by Mauer’s soldiers and comrades, now free to move up on a distracted Crown that was busy dealing with the warbeasts, pulling back stitched and trying to position the weapons and squads for killing the primordials.

  Another attack poised but not yet delivered. If they were quick, it would coincide with the twin’s attack here. Not that there was anything to it beyond a sort of violent poetry.

  I couldn’t begin to guess what the Duke had planned, but that was another set of swords.

  The twin was in place to attack. There was nothing saying she would attack now, but I imagined she was angry. I’d made her sister bleed. We had no idea where that sister was.

  “Cross the street! Fast!” I called out. My hand went up, signaling Jamie. Behind. Three…

  Boots tramped on the road. We were moving directly away from the younger twin, now, slightly toward Mauer’s lines, and toward the soldiers and the elder twins, if they had been ahead of us.

  Two, I gestured, as I called out, “Be ready!”

  The explosions continued in the distance, the dull noise baffling and muting the finer sounds around us.

  One, I gestured, the gesture segueing into the sign for behind.

  “About face!” Jamie and I called out, at the same time.

  As one, the entire squad turned. Too slow, some, others confused. One or two might not even have known what ‘about face’ meant.

  But most did. Half of those individuals saw the twin, at the other side of the street. They fired, their rifle shots and pistols firing in time with mine and Jamie’s. One of the others threw a bola.

  She was too fast. A leap to our right, reacting as she caught a singular bullet to the limb, hard enough that her spike-limb scratched against the road. Footing secured, she leaped back, crashing through a window.

  In the midst of it, the thrown bola did a lazy spin before landing halfway between us and her.

  “Holy mother of god!” Tattoo Belly gasped the words. “Holy mother, I was looking back and I didn’t even see her at first.”

  The glassblower started to head across the street, toward the bola she’d thrown.

  “No!” I said. “Leave it. This way!”

  “How did you know?” Tattoo Belly asked.

  Because a pair of killing machines with bloodthirst on multiple levels, who only get five to ten minutes of action before having to head back to their sisters, lesser nobles who have likely never had to delay gratification once in their lives? They can’t be that patient. Not when they’re angry about their sister getting shot.

  “I’m getting to understand them,” I said, feigning a calm I didn’t feel. My heart pounded. My fingers shook as I reloaded my rifle.

  “We shot her and didn’t even break the skin!” Lookout said.

  “The old man here hit exposed bone. Thicker end of the spike,” Jamie said. “It probably hurt. Might have fractured bone. I don’t know. Lillian said the bone was hardened. Carbon-dense, heavier than lead.”

  And it’s pissing them off, I thought. This isn’t what they’re used to. Pain and being predicted. Those dense, hard bones take energy to haul around. Efficient as they are, they’re getting tired and they’re getting more emotional.

  Will she cross the street to come to us, or head back to her sisters to recoup, get patched up, and get organized?

  Or are the other twins making a move?

  The soldiers and the elder twins couldn’t be that far away.

  Weapon raised and readied, primed to strike.

  If I could anticipate it, we’d be fine.

  “Up ahead,” Adam said. He was panting. When I looked back, I could see the sweat glistening on black, tattooed skin. It had to be cold, given the weather. He managed to find the breath to utter another word, “Store.”

  “Rope?” I asked. “Weapons?”

  “Fishing supplies,” Brawler said. “Nets, yeh? But the door will be locked.”

  “How far?”

  “Two streets over.”

  We won’t make it that far before we run into trouble, I thought. They can’t let us, especially if they heard.

  Soldiers would be getting the order, to close in, to catch up, put us on the defensive. We didn’t have much in the way of available cover, with only open street in front, behind, and to our left.

  “There!”

  For the people to aim and fire even as I was turning my head, they had to have been paying attention to our left flank, watching out for the twin we’d just shot at. The rifle shot exploded right next to my ear, and was doubly worse because I hadn’t even seen the gun or anticipated the shot.

  But the twin was already moving. Showing herself and retreating in the same smooth motion.

  There was no reason to do that unless—

  “Incoming!” I shouted, “Turn—”

  The other twin dropped like a stone, right into the midst of the group.

  Her two forelimbs plunged down with her. Spikes of bone, as hard as steel and heavier than lead, one through Bat’s shoulder. The other went through Scrub-Brush’s collarbone and out the front of his ribcage.

  He’d been the only one that was a decent shot in our group, I was ninety-percent sure. He’d had calluses on his fingers that suggested he spent whole days with his gun in his hands. A hunter, if I had to guess, one who had picked up their gun during past military service and had kept it well maintained since. Smart enough to shut up and follow orders without comment or complaint.

  Forelimbs firmly planted in two members of our group, she swung her feet up in unison. Sharp talons at the ends swept up Brawler’s face, from chin to hairline, tearing up everything between. Cheeks shredded enough I could see teeth past the blood and meat, eyes just gone.

  I told them to watch our right side, I thought. The person who’d shot at the twin had been one of the ones who had been supposed to watch the other direction.

  The twin remained there, spike forelimbs still thrust down, anchored in meat that had yet to collapse to the ground, feet pointing straight up, a grisly handstand, one that showed her gouged back to me, held for one second, two seconds—

  I knew, seeing it, that there was no action anyone would take that would stop her from killing at least two more people. If the fight were chess, she had us in check, and none of us had the instincts or skill to see how or why. We would make our next move, blind, and it would be the wrong move.

  Goiter stabbed at her with a bayonet blade.

  Easily, fluidly, she moved out of the way, letting her body fall back and away from the thrust. She yanked one limb out of the old man, bringing it over her head and down, slashing it with a deceptive speed, far faster than the slower movement of the rest of her body.

  At Adam. He brought his rifle up, blocking the slash. The twin’s limb came down through the construction of metal and wood. The former bent and broke, the latter splintered. The weapon came apart in two uneven halves.

  She was left with one arm still inside Bat-nose’s shoulder, the girl doubled over, torso twisted as she tried to avoid having it wrenched apart by the movement of the twin’s limb, and her other limb down at Adam’s midsection.

  Swipe. Slice Adam at the lower stomach, cutting an inch deep.

  Haul one limb out of Bat-nose, and bring it up and around, cutting the woman with the glasses from lower ribs to shoulder, carrying on to aim for Adam’s throat. He caught the limb in one hand, and, as if she expected it, she tugged the blood-slick bone back out of his grip, leaving it still pointed at him. At a tall, broad-target who had zero way of getting out of the way in time.

  It
was Lookout who moved, swinging overhead, using the makeshift bola like a flail, down at the arm.

  The weight at the end swing over, around, cord encircling the folded limb twice before cracking ineffectually against bone.

  One limb possibly bound, but she was still a killing machine, smack dab in the center of the killable. The people who were reeling or outright dying from her attacks were in the way of the people who had any chance of doing anything.

  Again, Adam grabbed at her, seizing her by the upper arm.

  Don’t- I thought, but he was already doing it, and he couldn’t read my mind.

  It was the wrong thing to do, throwing her to one side, away and out of the group, but there were no right things to do. While she moved, she raised her legs, talons cutting again at Glasses, and once at Tattoo Belly. She hit the ground, less graceful with one limb wrapped in the bola-flail, but I could see how she was swift to get her feet under her, ready to move.

  I hadn’t been able to shoot while she was in the midst of the group, with so many bodies blocking my shot. Others were in the same boat. I recognized the impatience I felt, and I knew what it meant. The tables had been turned. One side wounded, left wanting to retaliate, and finding themselves frustrated instead. An opening was now given, just like when we’d crossed the street, our backs to the twin, soon to be followed by the reversal.

  “Hold fire!” I shouted.

  Too late. The speed of the air moving from my lips to their ears was slower than the impulse from their brains to their fingers.

  The members of the group who weren’t blinded, mortally wounded, disarmed, or in agonizing pain fired.

  To someone who didn’t see exactly what she’d done, it was like she could read minds, dodge bullets. She hopped and slid to one side, head low, three available limbs skidding on the road until they found traction. No less than five guns were fired at her—three rifles and two pistols, and not one bullet touched her.

  But she’d known we would be impatient, wanting to shoot. She had performed in situations almost identical to this countless times in her life, often enough to know the time it took most to aim and pull the trigger.

  While our people worked to reload, she lunged to intercept her sister, who was crossing the street, heading right for us. The one twin would cut the binding without breaking stride, and would run into our midst a split-second before the first person managed to reload, carrying out the second half of the twins’ bloody dance.

  But the scenario wasn’t going to go as they had planned. I hadn’t fired. I aimed, looking down my rifle’s sights.

  The one who had just cut through our ranks wasn’t aware, but the twin who was charging our way saw. She changed direction, moving explosively, tackling her own sister, to knock her off course.

  I suppressed a smile, exhaling slowly. Her timing was off there, too.

  Patience.

  The two sisters, tangled together, placed perfectly for one bullet to penetrate the both of them. I squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet pinged off the street, a miss.

  Fuck!

  I could sense Gordon’s disapproving eyes on me as I fumbled to reload. Don’t fight, Sy. You’re bad at it.

  While I joined the others in trying to reload in time, knowing it wouldn’t be fast enough, another shot rang out. The bullet passed through one twin’s back, out the front. Thick black blood and bone fragments sprayed out, and she collapsed into her sister.

  Jamie.

  Jamie had held his fire, too.

  The twin with one bound limb struggled to rise with the weight of her sister on her. There was a glimmer of emotion to the haste, and that emotion mirrored the fumbling movements of the people around me who were trying to reload faster than their numb hands were allowing.

  Awkwardly, moving on three limbs instead of four, she backed away from her sister’s body, pausing.

  Her skeletal jaw opened, and she screamed, far louder than her narrow frame should have allowed.

  The scream was joined by two others, just as inhuman.

  It was the elder twins, each with a rifle, stalking toward the rear of our bleeding, crippled group.

  Previous Next

  Counting Sheep—9.13

  The nobles’ inhuman screams rang through the night.

  The twin had come down like a nail driven by a hammer. One member of our group killed, another injured to the point that I couldn’t expect her to be useful. The rest had taken varying degrees of damage, ranging from blindness and near-disembowelment to deep cuts.

  The nail had been dealt with, but the group was still nailed down, in a manner of speaking. This number of people was a critical liability. They weren’t running, they were still too shocked and traumatized to properly bolt for safety, and even if I somehow drove them to move, it would be horrendously disorganized, muddled by the state of the group.

  Old scrub-brush, dead. The brawny Bruno, blind and missing most of his face. Both were as good as dead.

  Adam, who I hadn’t wanted to bring, had one arm, not hand, cupped against the wound at his stomach. Bat-nose, who I’d analyzed so thoroughly, had a hole through the top of one shoulder and out the armpit, the shoulder itself likely dislocated. I had no idea how hurt Glasses was, but two good cuts meant I had to put her in the same category: those three would slow us down.

  Tattoo Belly was scratched. Lookout, Glassblower, Salt, and Goiter were uninjured. They were also, with the possible exception of Goiter, people who couldn’t fight.

  Too many people were moving for the cover of the alley, but the injured and blind members of the group were obstacles more than teammates.

  I backpedaled, seeing the elder Twins approach from the end of the road, still screeching, their eyes wide, expressions inhuman. Both sisters were incomplete, a good two-fifths of their bodies missing, the rest remaining upright and in roughly the right position by sheer structural integrity alone. I could see black bone that had been folded up into place. The other twin was off to the side, still, crouching by her dead sister.

  Stumbling back, I grabbed the blind Bruno’s shirt. He flinched, raising a hand.

  “It’s me!” I called out, to be heard over the frantic shouts and noises of the group that was still heading for the alley. I moved around the Bruno, so he could serve as cover against any attack from the Twins, my evasive maneuvers quick enough that I nearly bounced off the brick corner on the other side of him. I hauled him toward the alley the rest were trying to flee into. “This way, and whatever you do, don’t push each other!”

  We were retreating, there was no stopping that from happening, and we were very likely retreating right into the soldiers that had been left in our way, a defensive perimeter of Mauer’s men.

  Accept it. Make peace with it.

  I could feel the fear and panic. Both elder twins had raised their rifles. They fired, one shot after another. Good rifles. Probably accurate. With the body of the blind Bruno between me and them, I couldn’t see if they were hitting us or not.

  I brought my hand out of my pocket, a bullet between index finger and middle finger, willing my fingers to be steady, and slotted the bullet into the rifle. Pull the lever, flip the switch, crank down the side. Then I was supposed to aim. I didn’t.

  The blind Bruno leaned my way, nearly pushing me out of the makeshift, living cover his sheer mass provided. In thrusting the side of my rifle out to shove him back toward the alley—a two-handed task, I felt a lump at the side of his leg.

  “Borrowing this,” I said. I slid a hand into his pocket, and I grabbed his coinpurse. Smaller than my fist, it was still packed with coins.

  He didn’t protest.

  I took in the scene beyond our little group. I couldn’t see the elder twins, but I had a sense of where they were. Each time they fired their rifles, I could place their locations. Striding or stalking forward, with all of the tense muscles and barely restrained power of a pair of jungle cats, they fired relentlessly, reloaded with practiced motions, and then
fired again.

  Four shots each, a pause so short I couldn’t believe they were prepping another four bullets, and then four more shots.

  A spray of blood coincided with a sound like a great weight dropping onto wet gravel. It was Goiter, too far out, not benefiting from the blind man’s mass and cover. Goiter had been aiming at the elder twins.

  The younger twin didn’t even react to the death, her eyes fixed on Jamie, her body jerking left and right, forward and back. Every adjustment was to throw him off as he changed where his rifle pointed. With every spare moment, her teeth snapped and gnashed at the clothesline that bound her trapped limb. Her elder sisters were shooting, and crossing that general trajectory meant risking getting shot, so she waited, watched, and distracted. The hesitation might have been helped with a frustration with her own limited movements and insecurity, however that strange lifeform might process such a thing. She’d lost her sister, and she was lost.

  Breathe, Sy.

  You are the jack of trades, the liar, the fluid element that can adapt to any situation. No excuses left. You wanted wyvern, you got wyvern. Gordon and Jamie wouldn’t take ‘Mauer left us underprepared’ for an answer.

  They took your damn eye.

  The anger helped clarify things. I let the wyvern focus my attention, putting the whole of my focus on what was happening, where things were, and all the details.

  I had only as long as it took the younger sister to finish tearing at that cord bola at her arm. With her limbs being what they were, she didn’t have the means to simply unwind it with the ‘fingers’ that gripped the thickest end of the spike limbs; too clumsy. Her limbs were weapons first, tools second.

  I gripped the coin purse until the coins within dug into my hand.

  She pulled her head away, sharp teeth bringing some of the last of the cord with it. Her limb managed to open and reach out, the spike coming forward and down as the scraps of cord fell away. The point struck the road at the far end of the street.

  A heartbeat later, she was lunging, a zig-zag path.