Twig

by wildbow

  It worried me, more than anything. That Mary would let the hardness go any. I wasn’t wholly sure what had predicated it.

  The ending being in sight, perhaps. Or an ending. Mine being one such possibility.

  “Keep us safe, then,” she said, still with that wry tone. Sarcasm without the bite.

  “I’ll try,” Ashton said, matching the wry tone with earnestness.

  Mary grabbed the rope, then slid down it, over the other side of the wall.

  I could only barely make out the pale blob that was Helen. The two of them disappeared down the cliff, Helen so close to Mary that it looked like they’d get in each other’s way, get caught up in each other and drop off the cliff face to the rocks below.

  Here and there, students in dark clothes were working with ropes, to lower down barrels and cases.

  “Where does this go?” the Professor asked.

  “We break you,” I said.

  “Me specifically, or…”

  “You, collectively.”

  He nodded, as if there was no surprise in that.

  “You break us,” he said. “You could have poisoned the vast majority of us at the outset, if you had a mind to. You could have made the gas you filled the dining hall with into something that killed. You didn’t.”

  “Some of ours in the enemy ranks,” I said.

  “There were roads available to you that you didn’t take. Now here we are. I can see much of what’s ahead, but not all of it.”

  “Your peers will get hungry,” I said. “You’ll eat some of the warbeasts. You’ll make what you can and use chemicals and experiments to come after us. But we’ve left you all with very little, the numbers favor us, really, even if your strength is disproportionately higher on the face of things. You’ll get desperate.”

  On the one side of the wall, the enemy was retreating into the main building. The lowest ranked students, doctors, aristocrats and experiments had taken up roost there, in hopes of some comfort or refuge, and they’d been denied it. If we couldn’t divide them up, we’d force them to cram in together in the main building. Maybe it would drive friction.

  On the other side of the wall, I couldn’t see it, but Mary, Helen, and the team that had crawled down were carting off barrels and containers. They would float them out to set points and they would release the chemicals, hopefully without exposing themselves to the stuff.

  “The Academy and the Crown are proud, above all else. You put a lot of stock in your ability to hold your heads high. So the first stage of this? We make you lower your heads.”

  “All the better to chop at them with the headsman’s axe?” the Professor said, with the tone of someone who didn’t think that was a real possibility. “To humiliate them?”

  I was silent, watching the shadows. Was that someone I saw, or a thick cloud of smoke?

  “Or to collar them?” the Professor asked.

  It was a person. A figure.

  The noble I’d seen before, who’d worn the red jacket. He wasn’t wearing the jacket now—only a black silk shirt and pants tucked into boots. He was watching the walltop.

  “There are two types of control, you know,” the Professor said, behind me. “The first is to rise up, so that when you act, you need only to reach down. The effort is minimal, the cost of acting small compared to the impact earned.”

  It was eerie that he said that as I looked at a Noble. What had the man’s name been? Carling?

  “The other, the path I took at Kensford, in dealing with Genevieve Fray, was to bring the others down. To allow ruin to befall other Academies while I kept the footing of Dame Cicely’s intact. We were quick to develop countermeasures, to free key individuals from the leash. Genevieve Fray promised, and it came to pass.”

  Carling paused, and in that pause, I wondered if he’d made eye contact with me. I couldn’t see well enough in the dark to tell.

  Ashton, beside me, was looking in the same direction. He didn’t seem too concerned, but the things that concerned him were a little different than the norm.

  “Are you lowering others to your level, Lambs, or are you raising yourselves up?” the Professor asked.

  Carling turned, and he strode into the smoke and darkness. If he was making a play, it wouldn’t be immediate.

  Carling, the pale Lady Gloria, Professor Gossamer. There were others. The smarter enemies that were watching and acting decisively rather than milling about. They were coordinating, and I felt as though they were keeping pace with us so far. The rest—not so much. If anything, I felt like the minor struggles, the disorganization and the silly little things like aristocrats finding common beds to sleep in in the city itself were gambits.

  “Remains to be seen,” I said. “A lot depends on what your side ends up doing here. But I think it’s key to note something.”

  I was glad I’d come, so I could see the enemy, almost look them in the eyes.

  The gossamer thing would drink the water we’d polluted, unless it was somehow able to take commands extensive enough to guide it away from water that might be poisoned, somewhere further down the coast, where it still had anchors. It would attack once or twice more, and then it would drink, and it would die.

  They’re going to make a play within a few hours, before their side is too weak from hunger. It wasn’t an idea I had that was wholly based in logic or anything specific I’d noted. But instinct suggested it was right. It made the most sense, and it was the most inconvenient thing they could do. It would coincide with the next, last attack from the Gossamer thing, before the thing had a chance to be poisoned or counteracted. It would be decisive, one way or the other.

  “It’s key to note something?” the Professor asked.

  “Half of the Lambs are broken, dead, or dying,” I said. “So if we bring you all down to our level, it’s not going to be pretty.”

  “It’s not a pretty thing either, to raise yourself up to a better position, if you’re starting from a point marked by the dead, dying, and broken,” he said.

  “I’m going to guess you’re not one for prayer,” I said. “Being loyal to the Crown and all.”

  “More than some,” he said. “The school I run used to be a religious one, before the title changed.”

  My voice was hard, and I was very cognizant of the Infante in the corner of my vision, intently staring through the gloom. “Well, maybe say some words, then. Because that ugliness, whichever way the plan goes, is going to include you, your Claire, and everything else you hold dear.”

  Previous Next

  Root and Branch—19.10

  I’d expected them to strike before dawn, when the city was still dark. They didn’t.

  I was left to wonder if they had delayed because of internal strife or if it was because they wanted to run counter to expectations.

  The sun was rising but the sky was overcast. Warbeasts and experiments had been led out of the main building and tunnels, and our opposition had gathered every last man they could spare. Some of our own were in their number, pressed into service, trying to be helpful, or actually turning tail and joining the enemy.

  “Who’s the one in red again?” Helen asked.

  “Lord Carling,” Jessie said.

  “He caught my eye too,” I said.

  Helen made an amused sound.

  The enemy maintained formations as they made their way through the morass of burned buildings and the detritus from the night’s skirmishes. The gossamer thing still stuck close to the main building, holding back while the small army advanced. Lesser creatures were charging forward—squads of very mobile stitched, beasts, and things that looked halfway between man and beast.

  Here and there, they ran into trouble. Miss Muffet’s spider, injured already from combat earlier in the evening, was uncovered as it lurked in darkness. Soldiers and stitched raised weapons, on alert, but the six nobles that were taking point didn’t flinch or even glance in that direction.

  As if they’d already grasped the situation and decid
ed how it would conclude. Or as if they just didn’t care. As if a spider that could swallow a man whole and then start chowing down on another man without swallowing was a thing that could be ignored.

  Beasts and brutish experiments threw themselves at the spider. Webbing and spider spawn laid in the midst of the rubble caught the first of them, snaring and biting at legs and feet. The surge of the Academy’s forces was such that men with the heads of flayed beasts and beasts were able to trample over and on the backs of their kin, to bypass the snares and spawn. They mobbed the great spider, and they dragged it down to the ground.

  There were others. People afflicted with parasites, people bloated with gas to the point they threatened to rupture, stitched who’d lost their minds and were fighting anything that drew close, regardless of allegiance…

  The Lambs had gathered, and we watched the enemy make their approach. Jessie, Lillian, Helen, Duncan, Mary, Ashton, and Nora were all present. We stood as a group.

  “They’re carrying barrels,” Jessie observed, holding binoculars to her eyes. “They might be trying to smoke us out, if they aren’t releasing something custom-made.”

  “Do you think they ate?” I asked.

  “Ate?” Duncan asked.

  “I’m just trying to gauge their mental states, see if I can’t figure out the angle they’ll take. It hasn’t been so long that they’d really feel like the hunger was making them weaker, but it’d make them irritable. Irritable would be good.”

  “I don’t imagine hunger is a factor,” Jessie said. “We guessed they might butcher warbeasts for rations. One large warbeast feeds a lot of people.”

  “Probably,” I said. “So my next question is, when they decided they’d slaughter one warbeast and serve it as food, did they save the food for the attacking party? Are the people up in the main building going without, feeling the initial pangs of hunger and fatigue as they watch?”

  “At this stage, I feel like I have to point out it doesn’t seem like the number one priority,” Duncan said. “But I know I’m leaving myself open to someone telling me how very wrong I am.”

  “Nah,” I said. I was very intently peering over the unfolding scene. In a few minutes, the enemy would be at the doors below. “At this stage, it’s not the top priority. But I don’t think we can do much more planning or strategy. I’m thinking ahead a little bit.”

  “You’re making me nervous, going on the tangent,” Lillian said. Her hand gripped the chains that shackled me, and I felt a shift in the chains that suggested she was gripping them tighter or pulling them closer to her. “Let’s stay focused.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  By the looks of it, Carling was leading this particular expedition. Gloria wasn’t far behind him. The other nobles looked to be lesser.

  We were near the middle floors of the admin building, peering through a hole in the wall. We were closer to the ground floor floor of the building than to the roof, which meant I had to crane my neck to look up and see the higher floors of the lady of Hackthorn. Countless people were gathered at the windows, peering through to watch proceedings.

  I could see the subtle shift in shade where the professors were gathering en masse.

  The advancing group’s pace slowed as they drew nearer.

  “I see Lambs,” Jessie said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Carling,” she said. “He says he doesn’t see many of our people at the windows.”

  Lipreading.

  “He’s been given remarkably keen eyes,” I said. “And keener intuition. He had a pretty good sense of where we’d be last night. He didn’t use that knowledge, but he was watching us.”

  Mary gave me a sidelong glance, clearly unimpressed.

  “He was looking in the first place. If we hadn’t been there, he would’ve been able to follow you or cut off your return to Hackthorn.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” she said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Carling’s intel is probably why they haven’t sent the gossamer thing to go get another drink. They figured out what we were doing.”

  It’s not the first time he’s positioned himself well to collect information and be right on top of what we were doing. He realized the houses had been stripped within the first quarter-hour of our attack beginning.

  “End result’s the same, isn’t it?” Mary asked. “It only gets a few more attacks in before wearing down.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said.

  Carling’s group stopped in their tracks, a short distance from the admin building. Stray warbeasts and experiments caught up with their group, many bloodied from the encounter with the spider and other stray experiments.

  “What would you say, then?” Mary asked. She sounded nettled.

  “That the journey is the same, or the progression is. But it’s their move, their decision on the end result.”

  She nodded.

  “Cryptic,” Duncan said.

  Mary was the one who spoke, “What Sy is saying is if it died like we wanted it to die, it’d spend the last of its strength without them fully realizing what had happened. Panic, paranoia, wondering about gasses that affect sensitive systems, parasites, they’d wonder about the resources at our disposal. That’s no longer the case. If they had any ideas about preserving the thing for the future, they’re gone now. They’re free to use every last bit of strength it can bring to bear, destroying it in the process.”

  “Carling is remarking to the others that this feels a great deal like a trap. That we’re baiting him.”

  “We are,” Ashton said. “Obviously we are.”

  “Shh,” I said. “Let’s not discount the possibility that the noble huntsman there can also read lips.”

  What do you have up your sleeves, there?

  The Lady Gloria was observing the stitched who were hauling the barrels. They were made of sturdy material that wasn’t metal. Possibly bone, possibly painted or coated wood. The barrels were being gathered, stacked in piles.

  “They’re standing a set distance away,” Jessie said. “Look at that. Just beyond the point our fire arrows reached. It’s calculated.”

  “A man after your own heart, Jess?” I asked.

  Jessie tilted her head my way and rolled her eyes.

  “We have guns, they have to know we have guns.”

  “Guns are inaccurate at a tenth this distance, even if the range on modern rifles might be superior” Jessie said. “Unless we’re talking Mauer’s special guns, and we don’t have any of those.”

  “I could have got some if you’d reminded me,” Helen said.

  “Lessons learned,” I said. I studied them for a moment, then added, “They’re plotting their first move.”

  “Is this one of those situations where the person who makes the first move loses the initiative?” Duncan asked. “Because I gotta say, we’ve got cards to play. Holding them back because we’re concerned about the counter-play might mean we don’t ever get to play ’em.”

  “I agree,” Mary said.

  “You guys are bores,” I remarked.

  “Nora? Would you?” Mary asked.

  “Which?” Nora asked.

  “Emmett’s station.”

  The words were barely out of Mary’s mouth when the crash occurred at the leftmost end of the admin building. Every head on the ground turned to look.

  What we’d set up overnight to look like boards shoring up a hole in the wall was… akin to a dam. Emmett had just breached it.

  No water fell, no billowing smoke. There was no rain of spiders or parasites.

  “Hoy!” I raised my voice, bellowing.

  I wanted their attention. Some of the nobles could hear me, but they were halfway occupied with surveying the scene, trying to get a better idea of what was happening.

  To all appearances, we’d shattered a wall of wooden planks. Keen eyes would see that the space beyond was simply more wood, an empty box.

  “Carling!” I called out, pushing my voice to
its limits. My throat was raw from shouting I didn’t remember doing. “Gloria! It’s a joke!”

  “It’s not a joke,” Jessie said, translating what seemed to be Lady Gloria’s words. She was backing up swiftly, barking out orders. She flung her hands to either side of her as she gestured with the same efficacy that another person might swing a sword. She was likely as dangerous, not that the elaborate white dress and elbow-length gloves conveyed that impression. “Get back. Get back. Get to higher ground.”

  Jessie didn’t normally speak in a monotone, but she did here, and it made for a curious juxtaposition with the scene.

  They were retreating, backing off. They moved to rooftops and the skeletal remains of burned buildings, but some soldiers, some beasts, and some stitched were slow to move.

  A small few of that ‘some’ reacted with pain. They stopped, dropped, and thrashed.

  “Don’t fall,” Jessie translated Gloria’s words.

  We’d released a volume of gas coupled with a few treats we’d suspended in the mixture. Naked to the eye, the gas hung close to the ground, pulled by gravity and displacing air.

  Junior had led the team that had come up with this, but the idea belonged to a grey coat that had lost their standing and ability to keep progressing when they’d been deemed too tame, too averse to combat. They’d been a specialist in sterilization methods.

  This was the specialist’s answer. A rebuke of the people that had stopped them from getting their black coat. It was sterilization, microscopic fibrils floating through the gas, binding to cell walls, be it bacteria, skin, or eye.

  They quickly induced cell death.

  The idea had been to eradicate bacteria, then remove lingering fibrils. They’d never gotten that far.

  Now, well, we could remove fibrils, but for now it hurt like nothing else, and it made flesh break out in rashes, ruptured veins, and then the flesh would turn black and wither away.

  Some of the warbeasts were succumbing. Some were already bleeding from more sensitive tissues, like the nose, ears, eyes, and softer flesh on the arms and legs.

  It didn’t look like we’d caught any of ours. They hadn’t thought to bring hostages or anything like it, if the students who’d stayed behind in the main hall were even suitable as such.