by Stephen Hunt
‘Say a prayer of exorcism,’ pleaded Owen.
There are never any atheists sheltering behind the shield line. ‘The Lord bless our aim when we stand against darkness.’ The last line from the text came unbidden to Jacob. And let us never slip into the darkness ourselves. He heard a mortal bellow. Charging men, figures sprinting through the black mist. Angry cries and unrestrained shooting to comfort their rush against death and the defenders’ return fire. Dozens of Vandians appeared as though they had materialised inside the smoke, screaming a battle charge and rushing the defensive line. Jacob raised his rifle and aimed bursts at as many soldiers as he could sight down on. More attackers appeared behind the first line, and his juddering rifle clicked empty in protest. Damn the fancy machine weapon. It practically vomited ammunition. A Vandian came crashing over the boulder and the short-sword was in Jacob’s hand as he plunged through the man’s visor. His first foe had a comrade behind, raising a rifle to shoot, but the soldier went down in a burst of fire. Carter and Willow appeared through the fog, and from the smoking rifle barrel, it was Jacob’s son who had just saved his life. Carter and Willow dived behind the boulder, Jacob using the spare second to slap a fresh clip into his rifle. Below their feet the ground began to shake again, a roaring from beyond the clouds signalling the sky mines would receive a fresh bounty soon. They can keep it. Within the smoke Jacob could hear semi-molten rocks detonating around the plains like a thunder god’s wrath. If one of those landed on top of the standing stones, the Vandians wouldn’t need to assault the position. They could retreat to the shelter of their crashed warship and return to scrape away the rebellious workers’ remains after the eruption died away.
‘Pull back towards the stones,’ Jacob told his son. ‘Wait for the portal to open.’
‘I’m not leaving you here!’
‘And I haven’t travelled all the way to the empire to leave your body for the crows,’ spat Jacob.
Carter stayed firmly put. ‘Do you see any crows flying through this?’
A second wave of Vandians broke through the thick mist, even more soldiers than before, rifles blazing as they sprinted forward, razor-edged bayonets extended and levelled at their rebellious slaves. All of the defenders opened up, but there were too many attackers and too few Weylanders. Soldiers breached the line, leaping over the boulders, thrusting steel into sky miners’ chests and heads. Jacob drove his rifle butt forward, smashing it into the visor of the closest Vandian… then abandoned the weapon – it was far too unwieldy to bring to bear in close-quarters combat. Both pistols were in his hands, soldiers spilling down as he walked his guns around the attacking mob, a bullet apiece at close range. Time always seemed to slow for his pistols, unnatural clarity, wounds appearing, soldiers doubling up, each spinning arc of lead with a blood-spattered home that seemed to call it in. Then his guns fell silent, their smoke lost in the eruption. Time’s tread resumed. Bodies lay littered around Owen, Willow and Carter. Around Jacob, a larger mound of corpses. He saw the look of shock on his son’s face before he noticed Owen had been wounded in his side – a Vandian bayonet wound from the size and speed of its staining blood. Owen slid down the boulder clutching his side.
‘Help Owen behind cover of the stones,’ ordered Jacob.
‘I won’t abandon you!’ said Carter.
‘I remember your mother teaching you chess,’ said Jacob. ‘A knight should always try to save a king.’
‘Don’t ask me…’
Jacob took his son’s arm and whispered, ‘He’s these people’s best chance of avoiding a death warrant signed by King Marcus. And Willow, I reckon she’s your best chance of a real life. Take them both and live.’
There were tears in Carter’s eyes. ‘Don’t you die. I’ll wait for you as long as I can by the stones.’
‘Don’t tarry too long, boy.’ Jacob watched Carter and Willow haul the heir to the throne away between them, half-dragging him into the murk. Jacob pushed fresh shells into his pistols’ chambers and collected the corpses’ rifles, laying them around the boulder to save reloading. He was joined by Kassina, ducking low and clutching her gun.
‘They’re all dead over there,’ she said.
‘I’m still alive,’ said Jacob. ‘Just.’
‘So you were a preacher back home? Your sermons must’ve been the hell-fire kind.’
‘Quite the opposite. I valued my peace.’
She raised her mask and spat against the boulder, watching the liquid steam away. ‘Travelled a long way to be disappointed, then.’
‘Found my son. Found a king I wasn’t expecting, too. Maybe being far-called was worth it.’ He tried not to think of all that he had lost on the way.
Kassina worked her way through the spare rifles, checking their bolts and magazines. ‘Glad you think so. I could put a bullet in a Vandian for every day they’ve kept me as a slave, and I’d still choose home over this place.’
A figure appeared at speed from the gloom to their side. It was Khow, the gask running low and clutching his abacus machine. He halted in front of them, recovering his breath for a second before speaking. ‘The gate will be open shortly. Kerge and I have traced the ruptures preventing its activation. Time to pull back, manling.’
‘Where’s Kerge?’
‘Spreading word to retreat among the other fighters.’ As Khow finished speaking there was a strange noise behind them. An orange glow pulsed through the hot black fog, a spear of energy just visible lancing towards the sky and flickering as it held steady. ‘We are successful! Sariel believes we have a little more than five minutes before the stealers break his control over the stones and overload the circle. All must pass through before then.’
‘Now I’ve gone and seen everything,’ whispered Kassina, staring at the lance of light.
As though summoned by the activation, the eerie fog-shrouded screeching resumed, a wave of Vandian soldiers breaching the mist, rushing towards the remaining defenders… or perhaps trying to outpace whatever lay behind them.
Jacob grabbed a rifle, bringing it to bear. He shouted to Khow. ‘Go get your son!’ His first burst downed a pair of sprinting soldiers. Kassina’s weapon rested on the rock to his left, short controlled bursts pivoting left and right. There were soldiers all over the plains, swarming towards the rocks. Too many defenders had already heeded the gask’s instructions to run for the gate. Not nearly enough rifles to stop this wave. Khow stepped forward, raising his arm and downing the nearest attacker, the soldier screaming as nerve toxins on the gask’s spines burned through his body. Khow roared. He no longer sounded like a twisted man… more like a maddened bear. Khow’s body whipped with pent-up energy, a cracking noise similar to a catapult firing. Attackers screamed as they were struck. The gask grabbed one of the violently convulsing soldiers, using the man as a shield as he flicked spines at the assault force. His muscles popped, spines fleeting off his hide. Khow loped through their ranks with an oddly graceful and sinuous movement, in stark contrast to the ferocity of his roars and the death of any soldier on the receiving end of his poison. Dead Vandians tumbled around him, their last steps juddering as paralysis set in, convulsing and twisting down to the rock. Rifles fired into the air or at the ground as the squad discovered they could no longer point their weapons; fingers rictus-tightening against triggers. As suddenly as the charge had started, it was over. The gask retreated back over bodies shaking in their final death throes, heading for the shelter of the boulder.
‘I thought your people couldn’t fight,’ said Jacob.
‘We loathe stealing life,’ said Khow. His voice shook; he was shaking, trying to re-establish his self-control. Overcome the urge to turn Jacob and Kassina – all too similar to the predators who had just tried to murder him – into pincushions. ‘That is not the same as lacking the ability to defend ourselves.’ He regained a measure of restraint, his voice growing level. ‘It is shameful. But I must protect my child.’
‘I never want to see an army of your people,’ said Kassin
a, pulling out her clip to examine how many bullets were left.
‘Nor do I.’ Khow stared down at the ground, disgusted, and seeing the broken dome of a human skull embedded in the solidified lava. ‘We stand on death just by being here. How I wish for the peace of the forest and the trees and—’ His words were cut off by a shrieking fury forging out of the eruption. It came at the same time as another quake, the ground shaking as a creature the size of a horse charged out of the darkness. Moving at such a clip that Jacob only had a second to take in how wrong the thing was. This steed had six legs, each a bent spear cracking the ground, the central bulb of its body jet-black; a man’s torso, head and arms like a centaur where a spider’s eyes would have been. It leapt shrieking over the boulder. Kassina was closest, her rifle already rising, a burst of gunfire tracking its leap. A spear-like leg flicked almost contemptuously out while the creature passed, as though slapping a child. Kassina’s body spun to the ground, face frozen with shock as her head curved away from the rest of her neck. Both Jacob’s pistols were in his hands, shooting as fast as he could squeeze the trigger, but for the first time in his life, his pistols’ target was not where his shells struck; the monster leaping to the side even as it turned. It shrieked and skittered forward, the evil noise paralysing Jacob. Suddenly his hands had forgotten how to move. In that second of hesitation it charged; Khow pushed Jacob out of the way and filled the air with spines, a cloud of poison toxin expanding out towards the… stealer.
Khow sprinted forward, still shooting spines and roaring. The stealer charged, howling, leaping to the side and impaling the gask through his chest with a leg. The limb broke inside Khow’s body, only five legs remaining as the stealer rolled away snarling. Khow’s momentum took him two more steps forward and then he collapsed onto the dark rock, sprawling down with the lance-like limb jutting out of his spine. The stealer turned, sliding on the bloody ground, trampling the corpses of dead miners and fallen Vandians, like an ebony bull ready to charge and gore Jacob. Its body had been badly peppered by Khow’s spines. The stealer didn’t look paralysed. Judging by its distorted human face, it seemed enraged.
Jacob’s hands were his own again. They came up clutching twin Landsman navy pattern single-action pistols. ‘So you’re a demon? These are mine. Let’s get acquainted.’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ drifted a voice from the fog. Sariel emerged. ‘Playing with your food again, Apolleon?’
The face above the beast grinned, hissing through its teeth. ‘Sariel.’
‘You’re about ninety-nine demons shy of the toad-spotted bushwhackers you needed last time,’ said the old bard, advancing slowly, carefully. ‘Not to mention all those hellhated skels you had running around in your service. But desperate times, I suppose? Did you keep my wings, the ones you ripped off my back? As a trophy, perhaps.’
‘You should have stayed dead,’ hissed the stealer.
‘Good advice,’ said Sariel, looking at Jacob and motioning him to move towards the gate with his fingers. ‘The real question here, is can you hack me apart faster than I can heal? Just one of you? I don’t think you can.’
‘You are not yet complete,’ snarled the stealer.
‘Your death shall be medicine enough for me,’ said Sariel. He slapped his staff against the rock and its wooden surface seemed to ripple, turning into a shining silvery metal. He spun the staff around, an almost hypnotic windmill motion. Not for walking, anymore. The old bard advanced on the stealer and it retreated, circling the man. The stealer leapt into the air, all of its legs thundering down like a rearing horse. Sariel dived and rolled under the limbs, his staff whirling and deflecting each pincer. The stealer flipped in the air, landing and swivelling, forelegs striking forward – but Sariel had backpedalled. The creature’s legs smashed against a boulder, shattering the bare rock into pieces. It renewed its paralysing howl and charged, both figures sliding back into the toxic mixture of volcanic steam and gas. The battle sounded like a clash of steel sabres, staff against javelin-sharp legs, increasingly muffled as they vanished.
Jacob stood there for a second. His guns hung useless in his hands. The rattle of smoking rock falling through the darkness. Only a few shots in the distance. A brief lull in the assault and the eruption, both. There was another roar behind him. A mortal one, this time. Kerge appeared with a patrol of sky miners, still spreading word among the defenders to fall back to the gate. The young gask had discovered his fatally wounded father. Jacob holstered his pistols, picking up one of the rifles resting against the boulder and ran to Khow’s side.
‘Why this fate?’ cried Kerge, kneeling by his father.
‘It is the natural – order of things,’ groaned Khow. ‘For me to follow the final path – before you.’
‘You saved my life,’ Jacob told the old gask.
‘And you shall – save my son’s, yet,’ said Khow. ‘His is the golden mean.’
‘You can live,’ cried Kerge.
‘I shall,’ whispered Khow. ‘In – you.’
‘No!’
Khow pulled Jacob close to his mouth, whispering. ‘Manling, the universe moves.’
‘What, do…?’ But it was too late. Jacob’s gask friend had passed from this vale. Khow lay still against the hard black ground, quills flattening against his leathery skin. Kerge tilted his head to the dark sky and wailed, an awful cry of agony and pain, one that cut to the very bone. It would have lingered with Jacob a long time if he had been planning to live.
Jacob pulled the young gask to his feet and addressed the two sky miners. ‘Escort Kerge to the gate. Carry the body with you too, if you can manage. Take them both through the stone circle.’
‘It’s time to pull back,’ one of the miners told Jacob.
Jacob pointed into the black clouds, the enveloped sound of shots and yelling soldiers growing closer. ‘I’m looking to cover your retreat. Otherwise the stones will be overrun long before you’re clear.’
The men didn’t argue. They hurried the shell-shocked young gask away, hauling Khow’s body between them. Khow’s body deserved to be buried in the forest he had loved so dear; that was his people’s rite. This was Jacob’s. Blood and flames and fatal skirmishing inside the dark fog. He belonged here. Jacob pulled up the enemy’s strange machine rifle. Aimed it at the line of attackers emerging out of the murk. He was about to fire, but his finger hesitated on the trigger. There was something wrong about one of the advancing figures, too small, a trick of perspective in the shifting smoke or…?
Hesia sprinted to his boulder, flinging herself against the rock and firing into the fog at the attackers shifting through the mist.
‘The gate’s open!’ Jacob shouted to the pilot. ‘Run.’
‘I know,’ Hesia laughed, pulling him down below the boulder. ‘But no retreating yet. Time to take cover.’
Out in the dead zone a whining sound approached, something huge spinning and cutting through the clouds, dropping closer and closer. Jacob resisted the urge to peer over the boulder as a massive explosion shockwaved above his head, the stone’s edge splintering into the shredded gas. A shower of enemy bodies hit the ground, the volcano renewing its eruption far above, as though an ancient fire god had grown jealous of these mortals’ shallow imitation of its fury.
‘Your crazy mountain man wasn’t much of a pilot,’ said Hesia. ‘But then, he didn’t have to be to crash the munitions ship into the hoodsmen’s advance.’
‘Sheplar!’
‘I showed him where my parachute’s stowed,’ said Hesia ‘But given his luck, he’d probably bounce without it. Now it’s time to go!’
‘Wait here. I have to check something, first.’ Jacob climbed over the boulder and slipped across the plain. He found the figure he had been looking for and wiped dust off the mask’s visor. The same young imperial noblewoman who had come down to the dungeons to scream at Hesia. Lady Cassandra. He felt for a pulse. Unconscious. Her hearing wouldn’t be so good when she came around, but then she didn’t need her hearing t
o be a hostage. He hefted her body up and walked back towards the boulder.
Hesia climbed over to see what he had discovered. ‘Who is that?’
‘An old friend. Yours, not mine.’
Hesia gazed down through the visor. ‘Lady Cassandra!’ Her head jerked up, startled, towards a shout in the fog followed by a burst of gunfire. Hesia tumbled to the ground. Dead? Jacob turned instantly, drawing with his free hand, shooting a couple of approaching guardsmen, and then vaulted behind the boulder, pulling his hostage after him.
Jacob yelled from cover. ‘Draw back! I’ve got your princess’s daughter with me. If you want her to stay alive, you’ll pull out every fighter here and hunker down inside your wrecked warship.’
‘Father Carnehan?’ called a voice. Duncan Landor! Jacob peered over the boulder. Two soldiers left. One was his son’s friend. And the man with him looked a lot like the hard brute that was Hesia’s father.
‘That’s your daughter lying out there, Vandian.’
Paetro darted forward, kneeling and turning the pilot’s body over. ‘Ah, lass. Why did you stop and stand? You should have run and kept running!’
Hesia slapped him in his gut with her jab-stick. ‘And you should have shot me in the head, Father.’
Paetro collapsed, jerking as electrical energy coursed across his body. Jacob holstered his gun and slid back over the rock with Lady Cassandra in his arms.
Duncan had a pistol in his hand, pointed trembling towards Jacob. The pastor kept the young girl’s limp body in front of him as a shield, while Hesia recovered her gun from where it had dropped in the ash. And he had thought his son could act like a fool.
‘Let her go!’ yelled Duncan.
‘I can’t do that,’ said Jacob. ‘Tell me she’s not the emperor’s granddaughter. Tell me that if I hold a gun to her head, the imperium’s agents and allies back home won’t think twice about shooting at me, just the way you’re hesitating right now.’