by M. S. Farzan
“Wait, we’re just going to go out there and fight them?”
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“No tactics? Strategy? Nothing?” he complained, his long ears standing on end.
I shrugged. “I usually work alone.”
“I have an idea,” Alina spoke up. It had been a long time since I had worked with a group, but the half-auric had done two tours in the military.
She explained her plan quickly, coming up with ideas as she spoke. We made adjustments as questions came up, but formed a working strategy within a few minutes.
We left the arena and I took Tribe, Vasshka, and Buster as Alina and Gloric headed in a different direction. My group walked back towards the casino area, still jangling with sound.
They were waiting for us in the central foyer, a large circle that led off into four directions. Slot machines and card tables encroached on either side of the four paths, with each row blocked off by one of the assassins. The Destroyer stood patiently in the middle of the foyer, two of his lackeys standing behind him with their weapons drawn.
“How did you find us?” I asked as we entered the circle.
The auric lifted the side of his mouth in what I presumed to be a snicker. “Just followed the trail.”
I hid my confusion as best as I could. Gloric had removed the tracers from our digitabs and put us on a hidden network, and we had been careful to move covertly. It was unlikely that anyone heard our conversation in Lucky Snake, but our little altercation could have notified any number of underground networks of our presence. For someone with the right instruments, it would have been a simple matter to track us from there.
I decided to leave the issue alone for now, but needed to buy time. “So this is it, then? Betray your own people for a handful of government cash?”
The auric snorted, his enforcers moving around nervously. He didn’t seem to be the laughing type.
“Do not speak to me of traitors,” he said, motioning vaguely towards me. I had to stop myself from reaching for my weapons.
“Why?” I pressed. “Too close to home? Or is Karthax paying you well enough to not care?”
The Destroyer didn’t rise to the bait. He coughed, or chuckled. It was difficult to tell the difference.
“You are too myopic to see past your own version of the truth,” he said, closing his hand into a fist. “The world is changing, and one has to change with it to survive.”
“So you would be a traitor to your own race to survive?”
“Do not speak to me of traitors!” he yelled, taking a step forward. His hands flexed dangerously, power building at his fingertips. The other assassins looked at each other apprehensively. To my eternal gratitude, my companions held their ground. I was hitting a nerve.
“What, then?” I asked, trying to keep him talking but without getting myself killed. “Why are you doing this?”
The auric let out a breath, visibly gathering himself. “Do not speak to me of traitors,” he said again, more calmly. “I’ve read your file. You don’t have much moral high ground.”
I lifted my palms appeasingly, unperturbed. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“That’s your problem, you don’t see your own hand in the destruction of our people.”
I furrowed my brow, genuinely confused.
“First agent of underrace blood to join the NIGHTs?” he said pointedly. I shook my head, not understanding. He wasn’t wrong; I was a quarter auric from my father’s side of the family, but it wasn’t any secret. My angular facial features and pointed ears made certain that anyone who met me knew my racial background, which got me into some places, and out of others.
The assassin snorted again. “You’re the true government’s pet. An auric who’s so self-hating that he doesn’t mind locking up his own people to preserve the status quo.”
I shrugged uncomfortably. I had been called worse, and on the same topic. For whatever reason, the assassin’s comment sat uneasily with me, in light of everything I had learned from Gloric and the Sigil.
“Just trying to survive,” I said, echoing his earlier comment.
He smirked, and despite our situation on opposite sides, I felt a sense of understanding, or something akin to respect, transfer between us.
It passed quickly. The auric’s expression changed, eyeing our little group.
“Have your friends reconsidered their allegiances?” he said, noting the absence of Alina and Gloric.
“They’ve chosen sanctuary,” I said, noting a buzz in my earpiece signaling that the others were in position.
“They will rot in that arena. I have men and women posted at every exit of this casino.”
He looked to the side, speaking to his hit squad. “Keep the Nightpath and thief; kill the others.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, drawing his attention back towards me.
A streak of blue flashed from his left, blindingly fast. The entromancer had just enough time to speak a word of power and raise his hand, creating a small transparent shield that deflected the bolt into one of his underlings. The Pitcher’s sphere struck the lackey in the chest, sending him crashing into a craps table before disappearing back into Alina’s hand.
Half of the assassins turned to face the new threat, while the other half readied to open fire on my group. From the opposite direction, I could hear a code being pronounced, all ones and zeroes, followed by a flash of blue. One third of the enforcers’ weapons clanked loudly, jammed and useless by Gloric’s technomancy.
The gnome appeared hovering over a row of slot machines, the bottom of his sandals glowing with some kind of ceridium-powered propellant. Another cobalt curveball streaked through the air to take out a short auric holding two machine guns, and the rest of us burst into action.
As we had rehearsed, Tribe and the wolf dashed in opposite directions in between the adjacent tables of chance, leaving Vasshka and I to deal with the Destroyer and his cronies. The ones with weapons still working opened fire, but not before we rolled out of the way behind a couple of slot machines. Bullets pelted the machines, ringing incongruously against the blaring casino sounds. I nodded at the dwarf as I drew my nightblade and a ceridium capsule.
Doubleshot nodded back, springing from her crouch and back into the foyer. In one smooth motion, she drew both of her long pistols, firing them twice as her leap took her horizontal. Two assassins fell as she turned her jump in to a roll, spinning and firing twice again. Two more assassins hit the ground as she rolled a second time, through another row of machines and out of sight.
I used the distraction to run around the slot machine, chanting and tossing the capsule in front of me. A shimmering black portal appeared in front of me, wisps of shadow trailing from its corners. I jumped through it as bullets fired upon my position, orienting myself towards the Destroyer, who was moving his hands through a spell.
I came through the shadowgate a few feet behind him, my nightblade raised for a killing blow. Unthinkably fast, the auric turned and completed the casting, his red coat whipping behind him. I ducked to avoid a spray of animal teeth and wrapped candies, which turned into some kind of metal spikes as they flew through the air above me.
I turned as I dropped, sticking a leg out and catching the backs of his knees, tripping him. He used his fall to tumble backwards, jumping nimbly to his feet. I saw movement from the corner of my eye and threw myself to the side and behind a booth emblazoned with augmented reality dollar signs and images of digital poker chips. Ceridium bullets plunked into the metal as a pair of aurics fired at me, but Gloric zoomed into view and fired a couple of rockets from his shoulders, taking them both out and a good chunk of the carpeted floor with them.
From my vantage, I could see Alina far down one of the aisles leading off of the foyer, sending pitch after pitch at the assassins advancing upon her, her wild hair tucked under her cap and eyes focused straight ahead. A pair of gnomes creeped through the machines around her, visible only as they passed in bet
ween the gaps in rows. I wanted to call out to alert her to the danger, but then saw Tribe’s stalking form headed in their direction, and a tuft of fur moving to intersect. The gnomes’ screams a few moments later assured me of Alina’s safety.
I turned back to the foyer to see Doubleshot backing out of another lane, firing her pistols two at a time at the Destroyer. The assassin had equipped what looked to be a retractable ebony spear, blue ceridium currents swirling up and down its length. He deflected Vasshka’s shots one by one with the staff and a wave of his hand, somehow still casting.
More henchmen came bounding into the foyer from the casino’s exits, having been alerted of the melee. Doubleshot was forced to shift her attention off of the entromancer, picking off aurics with cobalt blasts from her pistols.
The Destroyer finished his spell, making a wild call that sounded like a crow cawing, dropping an egg to the ground and crushing it with his foot. His skin shivered, shifting weirdly and hardening into an interlaced network of silvery hexagons.
The conjuring was timed to perfection, settling in place just as a zipping Gloric flew past the assassin, rockets firing. They exploded against the entromancer’s armor, destroying chunks of it but leaving his body underneath it mostly unscathed. Tracking Gloric’s receding form, the Destroyer sent the black and blue spear sailing through the air, harpooning the technomancer like an eel. The gnome shrieked, veering off course and crashing into a table.
“Glory!” Vasshka screamed plaintively, planting a couple of bullets into a troll as she ran in the gnome’s direction.
I drew my pistol and moved around the kiosk, firing at the entromancer to get his attention. It worked a little too well. One of the ceridium bullets blasted against his head, destroying the armor and revealing his face, and the other grazed an exposed portion of his arm. He staggered with the blows but called upon his spear, which returned to him in an instant.
A shadow appeared behind him, and my heart fell into my gut.
“Tribe, don’t!” I called uselessly.
The assassin turned as Tribe sprung from his hiding place, dagger exposed and ready to strike. The Destroyer caught him by the throat with one hand, squeezing and tossing him across the foyer. The thief landed with a groan and a sickening crunch at the feet of two hulking enforcers.
“Take him!” the entromancer yelled at them, turning back towards me.
Our eyes met, and I sheathed my pistol, knowing it to be useless. I gripped my nightblade in two hands, advancing towards him slowly.
He didn’t give me the opportunity. The auric took two steps and then lunged, driving his spear down towards me like a pioneer striking a flag into the heart of the earth. I parried it desperately with my sword, letting him move in closer. I struck out with my elbow, hitting his exposed face with a satisfying crack.
He took the blow, changing his grip on the ceridium-laced spear to clock me under the chin with the butt end. My head exploded in pain but I danced backwards, grabbing the weapon and pulling him off balance. I spun in place, turning my hips to swing the nightblade under his guard. He moved, but not quickly enough, and I tore a slice through his coat and under his outstretched arms. He accepted the wound with a grunt, and fired off a string of commands in an unintelligible language.
Two heavy wooden logs materialized in the air before me, swinging in my direction. I managed to parry one of them with my sword, but the other caught me in the solar plexus, driving the wind out of me and sending me to the floor. The back of my head hit the ground with the impact, and I could feel the nightblade clatter out of my hands.
My vision blurred, and time slowed to a crawl. As if in slow motion, I could see Tribe to my right struggling against his captors, calling my name. Across from me, I saw Vasshka standing over Gloric’s lifeless form, roaring in anger and firing at the attackers two at a time. Above me, the entromancer hovered, the ebony and sapphire spear raised threateningly.
Some conscious part of me took a small amount of pride in seeing his bloody face and chest, knowing that he could indeed be hurt. Behind him, I could see Buster racing towards us, but I knew he would be too late.
The entromancer spat a tooth on the ground, then drove his spear at me. I saw a streak of blue, and then nothing.
EIGHT
It is a drug. It is not an antidote; it is not a medication. It is not a solution to our condition, for we have no condition that needs solving. It is a narcotic, nothing more.
-Thog’run II, King of Aurichome
The blackness was a soothing comfort that wrapped around me like a thick blanket. I was at the bottom of a well, a pit deep within the earth, a time capsule in the deepest reaches of space. My world stood unmoving, blessedly quiet, incomparably dark.
Every once in a while, a painful light would shine in the darkness, setting the world to spinning and making me aware of my existence, a floating nothingness in the vacuum. I collected the shadows around me, trying to settle back in the tranquility.
The darkness would no longer respond to my touch. The light became more insistent, a throbbing ache that replaced my comforting blanket and rocketed me through space, ever upwards. I shot out of my unconscious state like a bat out of hell, gasping for air like a drowner unwillingly being pulled out of water.
Everything hurt. My head swam, my ribs were on fire, and the rest of my body felt like it had been devoured by a dragon and spit back up. I tried to blink the bleariness out of my eyes, to no effect, and settled for looking through a blurry white haze for a few minutes.
I relied on my other senses to ascertain my surroundings. The air was warm on my skin, with a light breeze, and smelled of mulch and metal. I could feel grass and dirt beneath me, and hear a slight ringing and whirring in the background. By the foul taste on my tongue, it seemed as if something had crawled in my mouth and died there.
I was outside, the sun mercilessly bathing my surroundings in brightness and sending needles through my sensitive vision. I tried to push myself up on my elbows, but my head whirled again. I turned to the side and retched, hoping that I wasn’t lying on someone’s fine outdoor furniture.
I rolled over to lay on my back, content to just breathe and let the sun warm me. Slowly, I began to regain consciousness, first remembering who I was, then recalling the fight that had knocked me out. Everything else was a blank.
With a herculean effort, I ventured another try at sitting up. My head ached and my chest burned, but I was able to push myself into a half-lying, half-sitting position and stay there. I blinked some more, allowing the world to come into focus.
I was back in the Sigil’s sanctuary, shirtless and surrounded in a sort of room formed by automated washer-dryers. Drones flitted in a halo overhead, intermittently blocking the sun. Across from me sat Gloric, his shirt torn and an ugly bruise staining his portly dark midsection. The rounded cross at his throat looked heavy against his chest.
“Good morning,” he said as I moved. “Or should I say, good afternoon.”
I grunted, my tongue thick. I rubbed my eyes with my fingers and rolled inelegantly into a full sit, leaning against a washing machine.
“You look terrible,” the gnome added, coughing weakly.
“You’re one to talk,” I retorted, feeling gently at the back of my head. It had been bandaged, but was still tender. “Alina fix you up?”
“Yes, praise God. She’s resting; it took a lot out of her.”
“I’m not surprised.” I wasn’t. Gloric’s was a mortal wound, and it would have exhausted Alina’s deepest reserves of energy - and most likely, her ceridium - to heal it.
“She’s hardly left your side, until about a half an hour ago.”
I grunted again, checking my ribs. They were bandaged as well, my shirt and long coat carefully folded on the ground where my head had been resting. My chest hurt immensely, but my ribs felt bruised and not broken.
I let out a sigh, resting. Some unknown amount of time passed, and I must have slept, for when I woke up, the sun had mo
ved and Doubleshot had joined Gloric across from me. They chatted in low tones, the dwarf sitting amicably with her booted feet crossed in front of her. She had donned her hat again, pulling down her kerchief so that she could lazily smoke a cigar.
“Well, look who decided to wake up,” she teased as she saw me move. Gloric chuckled, then coughed.
“What time is it?” I asked irritably, not having the strength to look for my digitab or initialize my lenses.
“Quarter five,” the dwarf drawled.
An elusive memory nagged at me. I opened one eye to look at Vasshka. “Same day?”
She nodded.
I let out another sigh of relief. I had been out for less than twenty-four hours, which was important because of some reason that I couldn’t remember. We had to go somewhere to do something, and time was of the essence. None of it seemed as important as a hot meal and a shower at the moment.
As if in response to my train of thought, my stomach growled loudly. I clutched at it, starving.
“Hungry?” Gloric asked.
I nodded. “Like never before.”
Vasshka helped Gloric slowly get to his feet, and they left the little area, still chatting. I made a weak effort at rummaging through my clothes for the Oxadrenalthaline, but couldn’t find it. A short time later, Buster padded carefully into the makeshift room, walking up to me to lick my face. I dug a hand into his coat, scratching him.
The sight and feel of him jolted my memory, and I remembered everything. The wolf running, too late, to my rescue as the entromancer stood above me, ready to deliver the killing blow. Vasshka fending off attackers while protecting a prone Gloric. Tribe being dragged from the casino, pleadingly calling my name in anguish. Alina’s sphere smashing into the side of the assassin’s face, spoiling his strike.
Tribe. We had to get to Tribe before they did any more damage.
I used the wolf’s strong frame to support me as I pushed myself to my feet. Gingerly, I gathered my belongings and slipped back into my shirt and overcoat. It hurt, but felt good to move.