Twig

by wildbow

  That was the good. The bad was that wood and stone were breaking away. Furniture from upstairs was falling through the damaged floors and ceiling. The damage was at a point where it was causing more damage. That was made all the worse by the unfurling of the cone, the strands making contact with loose rubble and stray items. They cut some, attached to others, and did some combination of the two for others still.

  The spike had separated the head of our group, mostly our riflemen, from the rear, more riflemen, Jessie, myself, and some scattered doctors.

  “If we kill Professor Gossamer?” I asked.

  “He has subordinates,” Jessie said. “They’ll have some control, I think.”

  “Then we need the control,” I said.

  “We do,” she said. She took a step back, grabbing my sleeve to haul me out of the way. Strands were drawing close, and as they reached through the hallway, scraping against the edges of the hole in the wall, they were forcing our group to move away from the group further down the hall. We were being separated. Even if the gossamer withdrew entirely from the hallway, the floor had been sliced and littered with rubble, with more stones and pieces of wood clattering down to the ground every couple of seconds. It was precarious footing, slow going, and there was a good chance of a large chair or a chunk of wood braining either of us as we made our way across.

  I’d almost have been willing to take the risk, but the gossamer thing was nearby.

  I moved closer to a window to look.

  It was retreating?

  “Sy,” Jessie said. “Helen acted.”

  From where we stood, it was hard to see much—especially with the hole being placed as high as it had been. We ended up ducking into a side hallway, and taking a long way around, accessing the east-facing side of the admin building.

  The gossamer thing was being directed to the cliffs. In the water below, ships had crashed into one another. Helen’s delay had no doubt been caused by the sea serpent that the one Academy had brought, and that creature looked wounded or dead as it remained still, lying in the surface waters.

  Fires burned, boat crews scattered or dropped to the water. Even with binoculars, the figures on the boats were as gnats and fleas. Stitched would be boarding where they could board and fighting who they could fight.

  Hackthorn, like all Academy institutions, had stitched to handle menial duties. They cleaned, they did construction, they manufactured things, and they acted as soldiers.

  With Hackthorn under our control, we’d given the stitched new directives. We’d arranged the boats we did have out on the water, loaded the ones we could with volatile chemicals and crewed them with stitched.

  There was no exit by water, now. The gossamer thing was drifting to the water, very likely on orders to combat the enemy, but there was no specific enemy to fight. For now, we had a reprieve.

  Lord Carling would be telling the others by now. He would be outlining what he’d found on the ground, in the houses and businesses.

  Every house had been stripped of food. Everything we’d deemed theoretically useful to the enemy had been relocated. Citizens had been gathered in the dorms and admin buildings, drugged, and now rested in long slumber.

  In the main building, labs were locked, the most essential items and ingredients put away. Everything had been made to look proper and nice, but it was a hollow thing, the substance… not removed, but transplanted.

  Helen had given the signal to close the harbor. She could climb up the exterior wall to reach us again, when she was done, but she wouldn’t be done for at least the rest of the day and for the next night. She would first hunt for key persons who swam for shore—captains and any guests who hadn’t wanted to join the party just yet. Then she would sail the water, looking out for any late arrivals or chance visitors.

  It served to keep her away from Ibbot and it gave her something she enjoyed doing.

  The plan at this stage was simple. The Lambs as a group excelled when it came to besieging an enemy, so we had orchestrated a siege, in a roundabout way, and we had rigged it against our opponents, preparing the battlefield in advance.

  It was such a damn shame we couldn’t have gotten each major group to different sleeping areas and targeted them one by one. Nobles, aristocrats, Professors and experiments all complemented each other in a dangerous way.

  The trap had closed, and we were engaged in a mutual siege. We had control over the key bridges, gates, and waypoints, and we had the food. The poison gas in the buckets I’d knocked down would taint the feast we’d prepared for the guests. They’d find nothing of substance in the houses. We’d squirreled away things for enhanced noses to find, but we’d poisoned most in advance.

  Much as we’d maintained a few windows in the alphabet-based series of ‘deaths’ for our actors, there would be a few pivotal moments in the minutes, hours, and even days that followed. Their ability to handle the negativity that old rivalries and being under siege brought about would be one such pivoting moment. Our ability to hold them off once we’d spent all of our accumulated tricks and special measures would be another.

  The gossamer thing was drifting back toward us, and my instincts told me that there would be others—Noble or experiment—who would coordinate to take advantage of the distraction.

  Previous Next

  Root and Branch—19.8

  It was like trying to fight a tidal wave with a sword and trying not to get wet in the process. Students with improvised armor joined Jessie and I in trying to fend off the attack. The gossamer had already made four more strikes, punching and tearing through walls, snagging on rubble it could pull down and cutting at the contents of the hallway, living or otherwise.

  The gossamer strands didn’t follow consistent logic in how they moved once they went from rigid to soft. Parts remained rigid, and the resulting kinks in the strands made the flow of it just a touch less predictable. That lack of predictability combined with the stress and hurry of the moment made it easy to slip up. We only had ten seconds to a minute to get from wherever we were to where it had impaled the building, then, if we arrived in time, only about that long to do any substantial damage. After that, most of the strands would pull out, with only the anchoring points remaining.

  We’d had only one good go of it, and three more where we’d arrived just late enough that there were only the anchoring strands remaining. Cutting at the anchoring points slowed it down, and forced it to set down anchors elsewhere.

  A dozen of us were assembled, armed with swords and axes. Six of us were on one floor, and six more were on the floor below. Damage to the wall and floor meant that the hallway on my floor was missing half of its width, the rest having tumbled through the gaping hole in the exterior wall. The hole was wide enough to ride two carriages through abreast, and through it, I could see the sky and the fading, overcast daylight, the sheer drop to the ground far below, and a great deal of the gossamer creature, as it settled into position.

  It was preparing for a fifth strike in this set of attacks.

  I could see clear to the floor below, where Jessie was speaking to the others. She was encouraging, giving advice, and describing things to watch out for. I suspected a lot of it had to do with keeping mood up, keeping people focused, and not letting people dwell on the futility of what we were doing.

  I remained silent. I didn’t have the currency to really sell my group on anything. They knew what to do, and any words from my lips would rankle, and we didn’t need any more negativity.

  The students were nervous. There had been almost twenty of us when we’d started defending against this attack. Seven students had tried to fight off the gossamer creature and had suffered grave injuries for their trouble. I secretly believed that one was probably a goner, based on the severity of the wounds. Another one had returned to help, but most of them had taped and bandaged books around their extremities, hardcovers torn off, and the fellow who’d just returned had blood soaking through pages of one book at his arm, dripping from the gou
ge the strand had made in it. The improvised armor was more the sort of thing to shield against momentary contact at best.

  I gave my axe a test swing through the air. It was one of the ones that was stowed for dealing with fires and defending against rogue experiments.

  The gossamer thing was setting down more anchors, now. Jessie’s encouraging words trailed off.

  I wasn’t with her, we were hardly ‘dancing’, but I imagined we were very much on the same page.

  For ten seconds, the only sound was the building creaking, the places where structural integrity had suffered groaning their agony. The damaged floor I stood on was part of it, and I could feel the vibrations and protests of the building through my feet and legs.

  The spike speared forth, and I was moving before it had made contact, running down the hallway.

  This was a tricky thing to balance, wanting to be close enough to strike out, but not so close I was caught by the hazard.

  I’d grown up with the Academy, trained as a Lamb to out-think the enemy and to keep up with the boys and girls I worked with. I’d adapted to each of them, matched my footing to theirs, and then helped the enemies stumble and the allies step true.

  This was an enemy I couldn’t out-think. It had no brain.

  It punched through the building, with a downward slant, very possibly striking through the tenth floor and exiting through the seventh, the hole in the wall facing the burned and black wood wastelands.

  If it had penetrated the exterior wall of Hackthorn Academy, then we could well be exposed to the black wood, in the small but not infinitesimal chance that the wind blew the right particles across the wasteland and through the gap.

  Something to address later.

  By the time I’d reached the spike of gossamer, it was already unfurling. Anchors were pulling at damaged sections of floor, dragging them away and down. Jessie wouldn’t be able to do much, below. The entire structure rumbled, rubble falling and furniture cascading. It was the kind of damage that multiplied itself, one cascade of falling rubble leading to another.

  I swung the axe, striking for the point where the hard section of the spike had started to unfurl. If I struck at something as soft and light, it simply gave, going with the swing. Strike at the hard part of the shaft, and it barely took any damage at all.

  At the midway point between the two, the strands were soft enough to feel the axe, but were held in place by the firmer part elsewhere.

  The blade of the axe crunched deep. Strands peeled off on either side of the cut and immediately started fanning out through the air.

  They were, going by the ones I’d seen and examined, much like Mary’s razor wire, but far finer. Each strand was as thin as a hair, lighter, and took a serrated shape on three sides, sawing through everything it touched. Seen from a distance, it seemed to cut through all it ran against with the same ease as fine, sharp knives might. Here and there, it moved with enough force to scuff and score even stone and metal.

  I moved back and away from the strands that were fanning out around me, and almost stumbled over the rug. Long and narrow, it had ran down the middle of the hallway. Now strands pulled at it, lifting it up and toward me. A knee-high barrier to hamper my movements. Purely accidental on the gossamer creature’s part, I knew, but it cost me a precious second.

  My retreat was performed with even more care than usual, as I navigated the strands that continued to fill the space around me, each one so thin I could miss them in the wrong light or angle. In the moment, my focus was wholly consumed by the need to watch each grouping of strands, to make sure I didn’t just have a way out that was clear, but that I had a way out when I got there.

  I swung again, this time at a different grouping of strands. A strand swiped against the handle, just a finger’s width away from my hand, and it dragged through the wood, carving a shallow groove into it, while threatening to pull the weapon from my hands.

  But the blade of the axe caught the strands and slammed into the wooden interior wall, which helped to sever them. I had to use my whole body to haul it free.

  Others were joining in. The floor was collapsing in the middle of the hallway, and I could see motion below. More students, not from Jessie’s group, because they were on the other side of the spike. They were using a visible gas.

  It withdrew, and the motion caused the strands all around us to flail about and take to the air.

  I backed well away. Light streamed into the otherwise dark hallway through the hole in the outside wall. Dust billowed through the hole in the inside wall, and I knew that if I waited for the cloud of dust to dissipate, braved the strands that littered the area, and stood at the edge of that hole, there was a chance I could see clean through the building. Small chunks of stone and wood were still dropping here and there.

  I brought the head of my axe to my hand, idly brushing my thumb along the length of the blade. It was ragged, notched, and a little triangle of metal came free as my thumb touched it.

  Outside, the gossamer thing was disconnecting all anchors, pulling back to go back to the main building. I was a little out of breath, and my thinking was strange. I was in an overly observant state, from my attention to the creature and its state, and I wanted to move slowly and gently as I adjusted my head.

  Professor Gossamer was waiting. He didn’t flinch as the thing settled, embracing the reclining lady of Hackthorn. It was only there for a few seconds before he finished communicating his directives. It departed in the direction he’d extended a finger, moving out toward the water.

  It was only now that it had moved completely away from the building that I could see what we’d managed to do at the cost of one life, however many injuries, and some seriously concerning structural damage. Some strands were clumping together in an unusual way—the gas had chilled or glued them together, and others had been cut short. We’d maybe cut or hampered five percent of the strands, and even then we’d only cut them in half, or we’d glued them up temporarily at best.

  If this continued, we’d be out of soldiers to throw at the thing before we reached the fifteen percent mark, and the building would crumble before we had pruned away a third of it. None of which covered the actual danger of disposing of the strands we had cut.

  It was gone, though. We did have a reprieve.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked.

  “Two cuts,” one student reported. “Nothing serious.”

  “Good,” I said.

  I left it at that. Short and sweet. Striding away from the scene, tossing my axe to the side, I took the hallway that had been reduced to a half of the width and jumped down to the next floor. I reunited with Jessie.

  “Two cuts,” I said.

  “I heard,” Jessie said. “Three injuries here. Some stone came down from above and it made the strands billow out. We didn’t all move fast enough.”

  Students were using weapons and stray bits of wood to poke and prod strands, moving them over the edge where possible. I could see the group of students further down the hallway, collecting the containers they’d used to produce the glue gas.

  “Good work, guys,” I said.

  I got a few curt nods and one salute before they went on their way, resupplying for another attempt, maybe planning something else.

  Jessie and I maneuvered to a safe spot, where we could see the main building, watch the gossamer thing head out to the water, and still be free of any falling stones, pieces of wood, or free strands.

  It also gave us the benefit of privacy. I hesitated for a second, and then hugged Jessie.

  Decompressing. Easing down. It felt good to hug and be hugged, to feel a head resting against my neck.

  I didn’t want to taint the hug, so I broke away and took a second to take stock before speaking.

  “It’s a living thing,” I said.

  “It is,” Jessie said. She was smiling a little. “What’s your line of thinking?”

  “I’m thinking it’s been sent to the water because it needs to eat an
d drink. It doesn’t seem very active, but it has to consume some energy when it attacks. If it has an inefficient body, it might have a hard time getting nutrients from the root of one strand to the end.”

  “Going by what I’ve read, it probably uses salts to communicate. Ocean water would give it most of what it needs. It might fish while it’s there.”

  “It’s not going to need to grab a huge hunk of meat or something and haul it to its mouth, then?”

  “No,” Jessie said. “I can’t imagine it would.”

  “Does it need to rest? Like actually stop, sleep, take it easy?”

  “If I had to compare to other, similar things, most of which are aquatic, I’d say yes. It’ll hunker down when it gets dark. I’m just going by what I’ve read,” she said.

  I watched as the thing made its slow retreat. The wind blew from the water to the Academy, and the creature mostly moved by letting the wind blow it, waiting until strands blew in the direction it wanted to go, and anchored to the most solid objects in that direction.

  “It grabs things. Can we… give it something to grab and make it hold on? I’m envisioning having it grab a pipe and then we roll up the pipe, get a bit of strand with it.”

  “It would probably cut through pipe as it tugged on it,” Jessie said.

  “Something else? Thicker than pipe?”

  “If it was anchored enough to hold the thing down, we might end up giving it leverage to tear down a good section of building.”

  I nodded, trying to wrap my head around the problem from different angles and not seeing much. I’d barely thought through the idea as I pitched it to Jessie, and I didn’t really disagree with her assessment.

  I was tired, mentally and physically. I wasn’t the only one who was, either. It had been an intense twenty minutes.

  This was bad, and it was bad in a way that went well beyond the fact that I didn’t have any good answers. It was bad because it was taking up our time, energy, and resources, and it wasn’t occupying much of the enemy’s. I’d hoped the inverse would be true, and that we could harass and pressure them.