Twig

by wildbow

  I paused, remaining where I was, chains gathered up in my hands and twisted around so they wouldn’t rattle more than was necessary. Jessie was just a little further up ahead. Lillian was a distance to my right.

  Jessie signaled. Three-three.

  I passed on the signal to Lillian. Lillian gestured to someone I couldn’t make out. I knew it was the Treasurer, or it was someone who could access the Treasurer.

  “Ho!” Carling called out. “Fine evening, isn’t it? Fine weather, not too warm for a summer evening.”

  We all remained silent.

  “Something just scurried across the rooftops, my Lord,” a Lady said.

  “I know,” Carling said.

  “It was smaller than the others, but larger than a housecat. My Lord, cats and cockroaches aside, nothing should have survived the gas.”

  “It was theirs. They uncaged it just now. I heard the hinges. Just be on guard. I imagine the blasted things have poison or they go for the eyes. Whatever they do, they—”

  The explosion cut him off. A flare of orange struggled to penetrate the fog, and only served to bring a spot of warmth to it before fading, replaced with rolling black smoke. Masonry crumbled to the ground in a steady patter.

  “Ho ho! That was an improbably big detonation for a small package! Everyone alright!?” Carling called out.

  I didn’t hear the responses. The fog was thinning out, though. The fire had burned away a lot of it, and much of the fog we had was rolling in to occupy the area around the explosion site.

  Carling was talking an awful lot, taking an optimistic, lighthearted stance. I suspected it wasn’t really for his fellow Nobles.

  “You could have sustained the siege, couldn’t you?” Carling asked. “You could have held back, remained secure at the perimeter, while letting us reunite with the others. You’re done with your white gas, so you would have had to. But you saw the need to venture out here yourselves. I can hear two of you whispering. A girl and a boy. You’re worried.”

  He wasn’t entirely wrong. The skew of the worry might have been slightly different than he’d expected, though.

  I glanced over at Jessie, who stood with her back to the corner of one house. The house had taken some damage in the earlier fires. I gestured as best as I was able to, without releasing my chains.

  They flank.

  Carling was communicating by some unnatural means, like subvocalizations, directing another noble to circle around. That was very likely what Helen and Duncan or Helen and Ashton were discussing.

  “You’re worried we’re going to stand firm. We’re proud, and rightfully so. Crown and Academy will hold out to the last. The people in that building can do it in part because we represent something. The Nobility matters to them. You’re thusly compelled to act against us. You Lambs need to take a piece out of us, for symbolic reasons. And you’ll stake a great deal on it. You put yourselves on the line.”

  I met Jessie’s eyes, and I signaled, pointing.

  Jessie raised her hand skyward, gesturing. One-four.

  I changed where I was pointing, hand moving to gauge distance.

  Jessie changed the signal. Three-four.

  “You’re confident,” Carling said. “And rightly so. I’ve never actually experienced anything of the like. This is… fascinating.”

  The chimp-puppy popped out of the fog, somewhere between Jessie and I. With the way the fog clung to the ground, it had been largely obscured. Its eyes glowed bioluminescent through the mist as it assessed me, then it headed off at a diagonal. Taking the long way round me.

  “Am I going to be the only one talking?” Carling asked.

  “I can respond,” I called out, gripping the chains tighter. I was revealing my location.

  “Excellent. I’ll assume, based on discussions I’ve had with others, that you’d be Sylvester?”

  “You assume right.”

  “That leaves me to figure out what I need to ask you. I won’t ask what your grand plan is. You’ve likely told the others, and if we reach them, then we’ll hear the same. If I asked—”

  The second of the explosions was more intense than before, but I was closer to it this time. It was only a few houses down from where I was. I backed away from the source of the detonation, eyes on the shadows around the rooftops. The fog and smoke made it appear as if things were there when they weren’t.

  But I did have some experience with seeing things that weren’t there. I wasn’t too unnerved.

  Gut feeling had suggested they’d be close. They’d be approaching from the most inconvenient, most unexpected angle, and that meant they’d circled the long way around. Jessie had echoed my sentiment if she’d agreed to give the signal and open that cage.

  The chimp-pups were akin to homing pigeons in some regards, except home was out the charges and canisters we’d laid out well in advance. They pulled pins and levers and then scampered off to a second ‘home’ site. By releasing them, we could activate explosives, gas canisters and traps at a dozen locations.

  The original plan had been to use it to uproot the enemy if they decided to lay a counter-siege and try to access the boys’ or girls’ dormitories, but this worked too.

  “These noisy interruptions are rather uncalled for,” Carling said.

  “Already set in motion,” I said. “Nothing I can do about them for the time being.”

  “So I see. I was hoping to have a civil discussion.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Well, you might be disappointed. Civility isn’t ranked high on our list of priorities, these days.”

  I heard Carling’s voice. Not directed at me, this time. “Where’s Lord Willoughby?”

  There was a pause.

  In the distance, there was a softer explosion, less sharp.

  That last one was likely our safeguard to hold enemy reinforcements at bay. They’d want to send people and experiments out to answer the explosions and help their nobles. A fresh cloud of gas would buy us a little bit of time.

  “Gas, that time? You’ve injured a Lady and, unrelated to the gas, you’ve made Lord Willoughby disappear.”

  With the heat burning away the fog, the figures in the distance were becoming clearer. There was a distant glow of fire.

  “I can hear the rattle of your chains, Sylvester. Why are you chained up? Are you that far gone?”

  He was pacing. I could track his voice as the silhouette moved through the fog.

  “We thought we’d give you a handicap,” I said.

  I heard the sound, low, building. A chuckle. It became a laugh.

  I matched him in pacing, venturing further from the building I’d been hunkering down beside.

  “What a shame that we had to be enemies,” Carling said. “I would have liked to have you work for me.”

  “I think the problem is that you still see yourselves as superior to us,” I said. “And not as peers.”

  “Is that the problem?” Carling asked. His tone was light. “I thought it was your blatant and grotesque lack of respect for the Crown and what it represents.”

  His voice had turned harder with that second statement.

  It was also a mask, something meant to grab my attention, and distract from the reality that one of the figures in the smoke had gone very still. An illusion, or a hollow Noble like the sisters had been, or—I had no idea what. But I saw the silhouette of one of the Nobles standing in the fog and smoke, and in the next moment, he was also charging forward, a mere five paces from me.

  A rifle shot caught him. He barely stumbled, but he did stumble a little.

  One of Duncan’s larger tentacle-hounds caught the noble.

  Even with tentacles catching at his leg and both hands, he managed to lift the thing up, then dash it to a bloody ruin on the ground. The time it cost him and the limited mobility meant he caught two more rifle shots. Lillian and Jessie.

  “Hold, Wharton,” Carling said.

  Wharton, the attacking noble, moved forward a few steps, then stopped. Whateve
r rifles had been aimed his way fired again, but they didn’t seem to catch him. He was practically unbothered by the fact he was being repeatedly shot.

  I backed away a few steps.

  “Come to me. Leave them.”

  “My lord, you just ordered—”

  “I know what I just ordered. But I’m swiftly changing my mind. If you’d killed him as planned, I’d be happy to let you continue, but you didn’t, and I now suspect you won’t.”

  “The gas is spreading, my lord,” a female voice said. “Multiple colors, more than one taste in the air.”

  “Which only furthers my point,” Carling said.

  Wharton stayed where he was for an instant longer, then turned, stalking back toward the others.

  “If we stay, we only play into their hands,” Carling said, as if to reassure Wharton that he was doing the right thing. Yet he’d already indicated he could communicate to them in ways we couldn’t hear. The words were partially meant for me and the other Lambs. “They want us to come after them.”

  “You realize that if you leave us alive, you also play into our hands?” I asked. “How many people are looking down at this, watching the explosions and the gas clouds? How do they respond when you retreat, fewer in number than when you ventured toward the main building, without a single dead Lamb to your names?”

  Carling chuckled.

  I heard the female voice again. Gloria, I suspected. I didn’t hear the exact words.

  “No,” Carling said. I caught that much. He said something else I didn’t hear.

  “I insist. I know I should defer to you, on several levels, but—”

  Jessie was donning her filtration mask.

  “They wouldn’t have done this if they weren’t nearly certain they could hold their own or come out ahead. They got two of ours,” Carling said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  There was a long, tense pause.

  “Ah,” Carling said.

  The heels clicked on the road.

  Lady Gloria emerged from smoke and fog, her chin held high. She’d been the noble with Professor Gossamer. Lillian had had some things to say about her too. She was pale of hair, skin, and eye, with only black lining at the eyelashes and as a small part of her clothing. She radiated with intensity.

  She also used the wrapping of her sleeves to try and hide a stomach wound. Blood around the wound had already dried, the damage done hours ago.

  She stared me down.

  “Is it that you want to act, you can’t let yourself back down?” I asked. “You should act then. Is it that you want to talk? I recommend you talk. Or if you just want to look your enemy in the eye… take your fill.”

  “I’ll ask,” she said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “The gas is spreading, Gloria. And I do know you heard the scampering things finding their way to more traps and explosives.”

  “I heard,” she said, absently. “Is Lord Willoughby dead?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “You know, we’ve given so much. Our entire lives are in service to the Crown Empire.”

  “I know,” I said. “But where we differ is in that you see the Crown Empire as a force for good, and we don’t.”

  “Not good,” she said. “But I think the alternative is far worse.”

  “We disagree on that too,” I said.

  “You’d kill me, but only because I’m Noble-born. I’ve never harmed my subjects, I’ve been gentle, and I’ve devoted time to ensure they’re looked after. I’ve always been gentle, and it’s a task, sometimes. I host lessons and tutor the gifted, and I host events, even for middling families. Balls to give them a taste of what they could have if they worked hard, welcoming young ladies into their bachelorette years, giving them a chance to be beautiful. I’ve shared my wealth out, not hoarding it. Whatever you represent, whatever you fight for, I can’t imagine you’re my enemy.”

  “Perhaps your doctors could contrive to give you a better imagination, then. If they survive all of this. I’m afraid you’re our enemy, whatever illusions you hold.”

  “If we’re to talk—”

  “We really shouldn’t,” Lord Carling said. “They’re delaying us, so the gas can creep nearer. Best to go to the main building, rendezvous with the others.”

  “Forgive me, my Lord. I’ll try to be brief. If we’re to talk, Sylvester, can I ask that you use honorifics, and refer to me as a Lady?”

  “You can ask,” I said. “But I’m liable to tell you to go fuck the spikiest warbeast you can find.”

  “I see.”

  There was a pause. I could imagine Carling being very impatient. I could see more of him, as the smoke nearer to us cleared. The gas off to either side and ahead of us was piling up taller, into high plumes.

  “Why do you hate us so, Lambs? Have we hurt you?”

  “If you mean directly, then I could point out the Baron pointed out my eye.”

  “The Baron doesn’t count. He was mad and pathetic. I feel like I can say that much without betraying the Crown.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lady Gloria. It’s not—you’re not the focus, here. The nobility isn’t as important as you think it is. The Crown, the King, the stations, it’s really… nothing.”

  “I see. Base insults? Attempting to get a rise out of me?”

  “No, Lady Gloria. No. You’re really truly nothing. You’re a farce. The nobility is, in entirety, or next to. Just children stolen from streets, from mothers, from breeding stock, whatever. The cream of the crop, gathered up, sorted among families, and made into Nobles.”

  Wind whistled through burned husks of buildings and the gaps growths of builder’s wood.

  “You really believe that?” Lady Gloria asked. “It’s tragic, that you’ve convinced yourself of such—”

  “We know,” I said. “We found out in New Amsterdam. Others have found out too. We told students and it was enough to change minds, convince them to turn rebel. Haven’t you wondered why the Infante wants to scrub the Crown States from existence? He wants to use plague and black wood to kill and choke the truth from our lips, and to strangle the spread of that base truth.”

  “Nonsense,” Carling said.

  It was curious that the Lady Gloria was silent.

  “The Baron found out. It’s what drove him mad, made him wretched. The Duke knew too, but… I think he persevered through it. Above all else, though, the Professors at the top know. I imagine that if you went back to that building and hinted at it, you’d see alarm on a select few faces. Ferres among them.”

  There was a long pause. Lady Gloria was unreadable.

  “Isn’t a beautiful farce better than an ugly truth?” she asked.

  Ah.

  So we were already at that point. Had she been ready on some level to accept this already? Suspicions? Questions without answers, that had all settled at once?

  “I think you underestimate the ugliness behind your farce,” I said.

  Lady Gloria didn’t seem to have an answer for that. She looked sad, standing there, thinking about it.

  “No,” Carling said.

  He stepped forward, becoming less of a silhouette and more of a man. As he approached, Lady Gloria turned her back to me, and raised a hand, clapping it to the front of Carling’s shoulder, halting him.

  “No,” he said. “That’s madness, and it’s an insult I can’t—”

  “Lord Carling,” Lady Gloria said. Her voice was soft. “You were concerned about the gas. You said we couldn’t attack without playing into their hands.”

  “He’s saying—” Carling started. He didn’t finish. He glared, expression shifting three different ways across two moments. “No.”

  “I know, Lord.”

  “We’re better than that. We have a long history, family lines. Even the least of us in the present hold status on par with—”

  Another explosion over in the direction of the main building’s gate suggested that we’d made our second attempt at stalling the reinfo
rcements. We’d have to back off soon—an explosion would delay them less than gas would.

  “It’s a lie,” Lord Carling said. In the doing, he sounded more like his old self. He chuckled, raising a hand, and waggling a finger at me. “They said you were devious, that you’d find weak points to capitalize on.”

  I remained where I was, my hands bound behind my back. I didn’t flinch, didn’t change my expression.

  “It’s a lie,” Lord Carling said. He turned to Lady Gloria. “Yes? I’m not some—”

  “Sick child,” I said. “Orphan. Street beggar—”

  “Stop,” he said. He was stern, finger held out.

  “—or a jail birth.”

  He reached for his axe, and Lady Gloria stopped him. His face was suddenly etched with anger. “Why are you stopping me? Why aren’t you with me in this? Why aren’t you speaking out?”

  Lady Gloria didn’t answer.

  “Lady Gloria,” he said. “Daughter of Alex Kinloss. I order you to answer him, firmly and clearly, and dismiss his lies for what they are.”

  Somehow, the words lacked authority.

  Lady Gloria seemed to think the same, because she didn’t answer immediately. She didn’t turn my way. Instead, when she did speak, it was to him, and her voice was gentle. “I’ve seen things that made me wonder. I believe—”

  “Enough. Or I’ll cut you down where you stand,” he said. Tension strained his voice.

  The smoke and gas had cleared enough that I could see the other two nobles in the back. I could see Lillian, a ways off to the side, a rifle in her hands, aimed but not fired. I saw Duncan’s dogs gathered, alongside three of the baboon-wolf warbeasts, all poised and ready for the excuse.

  I suspected he could deal with them, and the rifles besides. It would buy me time to run, however. I’d have to move fast.

  He jerked, as if he’d come after me. Lady Gloria stopped him.

  “Let’s leave it at this,” she said, barely audible.

  “Now that I’ve told you—” I started.

  “Sylvester,” Lady Gloria said. “Let’s leave it at this.”

  “It’s important. If you speak a word of this to the wrong person—”

  “I know. I can work it out. I’ll tell him and make sure the others know. We’ll move carefully.”