by Jay Kristoff
Mia looked to Naev, met by cold hard eyes.
“She speaks truth.”
“All right,” Mia sighed. “You’re right.”
The Hands armed themselves to the teeth, covered their robes with leather jerkins, hefting crossbows and swords and knives. Mia distributed the wyrdglass among them, keeping a fat handful of ruby and pearl for herself. She’d no idea how they’d pull this off. No idea if any of them would live to see the morrow.
No time.
No chance.
No fear.
She looked at the disciples around her. Nodded once.
“Let’s go.”
It seemed Justicus Remus wasn’t the kind to be fooled twice.
He’d left his back exposed as he assaulted the Mountain, and his overconfidence had been repaid with the slaughter of his rearguard and the loss of the speaker. With his planned escape route cut off, the justicus had headed to the stables, just as Mia predicted. But to his credit, it also looked like he’d learned from past mistakes.
Sadly, the justicus hadn’t counted on Mister Kindly.
The not-cat stalked down the stairs ahead of Mia and her fellows, slipping out into the Hall of Eulogies and immediately sensing the tremor of fear in the air. He’d marked hidden figures, lying in wait in alcoves or skulking in antechambers. Whispered prayers to the Everseeing on their lips.
He’d flitted back up the stairs, coalescing on Mia’s shoulder and whispering in her ear.
“There are legionaries in the Hall of Eulogies,” Mia repeated. “Almost forty.”
“Forty,” Naev whispered, looking at their pitiful half-dozen.
Mia fished a handful of white wyrdglass from the pouch at her belt and smiled.
“I think I can even the score. As soon as you hear the ruckus, come running.”
The girl wrapped herself in her cloak of shadows, heard Jessamine and the other Hands gasp as she faded from sight. The world dropped to near blackness beneath her veil, and she had to feel her way down the stairs. But soon enough, she sensed an archway, the vast, sweeping space of the hall beyond. The dead names on the floor. The nameless tombs in the walls. She could see the vague silhouette of Niah’s statue above, picked out against the blurry, stained-glass light.
Creeping slow, near-blind, she crouched behind a nearby pillar. Throwing off her cloak long enough to get a decent view of her surroundings, she stepped into the shadows at her feet and reappeared forty feet off the ground, nestled in the deep shadows of Niah’s folded hood.
One of the Luminatii saw movement above, yelled warning. But by then, Mia was raining wyrdglass down from her perch, thick clouds of Swoon bursting around the room. At least a dozen men dropped after inhaling a lungful, others running from their nooks and crannies to seek better shelter.
As the Luminatii broke cover, Naev, Jessamine and the other Hands charged into the room, black and swift and deadly silent. The soldiers didn’t even know they were facing more than one assailant until five more of their number were dead. The disciples fell on the invaders with a fury that staggered them, Jessamine’s blades a blur, Naev fighting like a daemon despite her broken ribs. Perhaps it was rage at the invasion of their home. Perhaps it was the presence of the goddess, sword and scales poised above them, cold stone eyes following the butchery. But within moments, the Luminatii ambush had turned into a slaughter, and the black ran red with the blood of Aa’s faithful.
Mia stood upon her perch, crossbow in hand, picking off runners and cutting down anyone who thought to strike at a disciple’s back. Ten quarrels later, she drew her blades and stepped out of the statue’s shadow forty feet below, burying a dagger in some poor fool’s back, cutting down another with a fistful of throwing knives. Fighting back to back with Naev, throwing up a wall of bloody steel, the song of their blades filling the empty space left behind by the Mother’s choir, the cries of the slaughtered echoing in the dark after the last man had fallen.
Naev staggered, clutching her ribs and gasping. Jessamine was bloodied and breathless. Two other Hands—a boy named Pietro, not much older than Mia, and an older man named Neraius—had fallen under the Luminatii’s blows.
“… mia…”
The girl stood over Pietro’s body, head hung low.
Staring into his sightless eyes.
“… mia they are at the stables…”
She hung there in the quiet gloom. Trying not to remember.
Trying and failing.
“He was just a boy, Mister Kindly.”
She shook her head.
“Just a boy.”
“… now is not the time to mourn, mia. this boy or any other…”
The girl looked at him then, grief shining in her eyes.
“… avenge them instead…”
Mia nodded slow.
Wiped the blood from her blades.
And she ran on.
The stables were a milling sea of men, animals, dust. The stink of sweat and blood and shit, the barks of centurions, the warbling murmurs of agitated camels and, above them all, Justicus Remus. Roaring.
Mia had only ever hidden one other person beneath her cloak, but Tric had been a giant, and Naev and Jessamine were each half his size. So, leaving the other wounded Hands behind, the trio had stolen down the stairs and out into the stables. Looking through the scrum, Jessamine sighed.
“’Byss and blood, we’re too late.”
The Luminatii had already managed to open the Mountain’s walls, blinding light and fingers of grit blowing in from the Whisperwastes outside. Soldiers had hitched up two wagon trains to camel teams and were leading them into the foothills outside; other Luminatii were saddling individual beasts and dragging them out by the reins. Most of the soldiers had never laid eyes on a camel before, and the process was taking longer than it should have—hence the roars from the aforementioned justicus. But still, the Luminatii were moments from escape.
Mia could see seven bound figures with bags over their heads being loaded into the foremost wagon. Even with their faces hidden, she recognized them immediately. The Ministry, a slender boy who must be Hush, and finally, a figure bound in a cocoon of rope and manacles, being carried by one of the biggest Luminatii Mia had ever seen.
“Lord Cassius,” she breathed.
“Black Mother,” Jessamine hissed. “They killed the other camels.”
Mia looked into the pens, saw Jessamine was right; any beast not currently hitched to a train or being saddled by a soldier had been slaughtered. She cursed softly, staring out into the rocky foothills at the Mountain’s feet.
“Naev, when we first arrived here, there was some kind of magik on the Mountain. A confusion, and kind of…”
“The Discord,” Naev said.
“Aye, that’s it. Will it effe—”
“No,” the woman sighed. “It only wears upon those who seek to enter the Mountain uninvited. These men seek to leave it. The Discord will not sway them.”
“Shit,” Mia hissed. “How do we give chase?”
“Just smuggle us aboard the trains with your shadow-werking,” Jessamine said.
“They’re already outside. My power runs deep in the Mountain because no sunslight has ever touched these halls. But out there … I don’t think I’m strong enough to hide us all. If we get seen, we’re as dead as those unwanted camels. Besides, the wagons are full. It’s not like there’s room for us to hide in them anyway.”
Mia spoke true—even thinning their numbers in the library and Hall of Eulogies, there were still over a hundred Luminatii left standing and only six wagons. Between their fellows and the supplies necessary to survive a weeks-long trek back to Last Hope, Remus’s men were squashed together like strips of salt pork in a barrel.
“Fuck,” Jessamine sighed.
“Aye,” Mia agreed. “Fuck is right.”
The Luminatii were dragging the last few living camels out into the foothills, clambering up on their backs. Remus was already aboard the first train, and through the rising dus
t, Mia saw Ashlinn, red-eyed and furious, standing atop the wagon and watching the Mountain’s entrance. The half-dozen soldiers Mia had left hamstrung in Adonai’s chamber would have told the girl what happened to her brother. Ashlinn knew Osrik was dead. And more, she knew Mia was responsible.
The girl snarled something at Remus, only to be roared at in response. However much she’d helped in taking down the Church, it seemed the justicus of the Luminatii was in no mood to take lip from a seventeen-year-old heretic.
Glad to be the thorn in your side, bitch …
The last camels were outside. The wagon covers were being drawn, the tackle checked. Naev muttered a prayer, readying to charge, but Mia grabbed her arm.
“You can’t go out there.”
“We cannot let them escape,” the woman hissed.
“There’s too many, Naev. They’ll butcher us before we get ten feet.”
“We can’t just sit here!” Jessamine spat.
Mia chewed her lip. Stared at the hundred-yard dash to the rearmost wagon.
“I can make it,” Mia said. “They won’t see me. I can get aboard.”
“And do what? Take out a hundred Luminatii alone?”
Mia’s shadow rippled. A chill shivered the air.
“… she is never alone…”
Mia looked down at the not-cat, tail switching side to side. And there in the shadows, crouched amid the dust and the dark, the puzzle came together in Mia’s mind. The final piece, the final thought, the final answer falling into place.
Click.
“I know how to stop them,” she breathed. “Are you with me?”
Mister Kindly titled his head quizzically.
“… always…”
Before Naev or Jessamine could speak, Mia was off, tearing up the shadows and throwing them about her shoulders, dashing through the stables and into the open air. The trains were already moving, dirt and grit in her mouth and eyes, and she ran almost blind, just a shifting blur against the rising dust. Stumbling through the gloom, the blur of Luminatii riders to the rearmost wagon, overflowing with grumbling, blood-caked soldiers. Moving by feel, she slipped beneath the tray, crawled forward and slung herself up onto the fore-axel to lay in wait.
The wagon crunched and bounced down the crumbling slope, the drivers whipping the camels hard. Remus obviously wanted to get as far from the Mountain as he could with his prize; the justicus might be a courageous sort when murdering kittens and throwing children into canals, but it seemed when plans went astray, so did his desire for confrontation.
Or perhaps Scaeva simply wanted Lord Cassius more than Mia could imagine.
The girl clung to the wagon’s belly like a leech. But she was safely out of sight for the time being, and so she threw aside her shadow cloak, concentrating only on keeping her grip. She was bounced and jolted, hammered and slammed, her back and arse screaming protest all the while. Dust caked her tongue, gummed up her eyes, caked the dried blood in her hair. She almost slipped a half-dozen times, closing her eyes and praying for strength. The ride seemed to go on forever.
A good five or six hours from the Mountain, the foothills began to even out, and the ride became a little less like torture. The sand grew soft and the drivers laid on the whips. Camels broke into a full gallop, the wagons rushing along behind them, fast as they could go.
Let’s see about that …
Though only Saan hung in the sky, the light was near blinding compared to the Mountain’s belly, and Mia’s power felt thin and feeble. But still, she reached out to the gloom on the wagon’s underside, pulled it about her shoulders again and held it tight. Calling loud as she could to the shadows, and hoping something else might answer.
“… i believe you asked me to remind you never to call the dark in this desert again…”
“I believe it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
Mister Kindly tried to purr, voice rippling with amusement.
“… i believe you’re right…”
It was another few minutes before she heard a cry of alarm from the wagon ahead. Shuffling footsteps on the planks above, Luminatii calling.
“Claudius, do you see that?”
“What is it?”
“I see another! Two of them!”
“No, three!”
Beneath the shuddering creak of the timber, the clatter of the wheels, the shouts from above, Mia fancied she heard a distant rumble. A cry from the wagon train in front.
“Sand kraken!”
The scrawny, blood-soaked girl clung to her perch and smiled. She didn’t bother looking—even if she weren’t near-blind beneath her cloak, between the dust from the wheels and the multitude of riders, she wouldn’t have a chance of seeing them yet. But listening close, she could hear them, just as she’d heard them the turn she fought Naev on these same sands. The churn of massive bodies diving through the desert deeps. The faint echoes of distant, thunderous roars.
Big ones.
Coming right at them.
Feeling her way, Mia crawled along the wagon’s belly, up to the Y-shaped timbers that hitched her wagon to the wagon in front. The drivers were swinging the whips hard now, desperate to outrun the behemoths on their tail. Mia knew Ashlinn would be familiar with the horrors of the Whisperwastes and how to keep them at bay, and yes, there it came—the awful rhythm of ironsong. Luminatii began beating on those bloody pipes for all they were worth, Mia wincing at the racket just above her head. She’d no idea if the noise actually had any effect on the bigger kraken, but the offending musician wasn’t taking chances. The cacophony was ear-splitting, and Mia was already in a temper. As if to echo her mood, she heard another awful, rumbling bellow.
Closer now.
“… you are making them very angry…”
Mia spat, so much dust in her mouth she could barely speak.
“I’ll make it up to them.”
“… how, pray tell…?”
A white smile gleamed in a dirty, blood-caked face.
“Fix them dinner.”
Jarred and juddered as the wagons bounced through the sands, she crawled out from the axel and onto the hitch bar. Through the darkness over her eyes, she could make out dim shapes in the swirling dust. Perhaps fifteen Luminatii riding around the trains. Maybe twenty soldiers in each wagon, all standing and staring aft. She could hear rumbling in the earth, drawing ever closer.
“Another one!” came the shout.
“West! West!”
“Aa’s Light, look at the size of it!”
Mia grinned to herself, pawing the grit from her eyes. She’d hoped this deep in the desert, calling the dark might bring a few of the bigger kraken out to play. But from the sound of it, she’d hooked a couple of monsters.
At the sight of their fourth uninvited guest, the Luminatii on ironsong duty began banging on his pipes like a privy door in the wind. Mia cursed again, covered her ears. The racket was worse than annoying, it was bloody painful.
Let’s ring the midmeal bell instead.
She hopped across to the second wagon’s hitch, trying to figure out exactly how the wagons were connected. Leaning close and squinting hard, she made out a metal bar, hooked through a round eyelet, lashed together with thick rope. Quick smart, Mia drew a knife from her boot and began sawing away, occasionally glancing up to the Luminatii in the wagons above.
As one might expect, the men only had eyes for the tentacled monstrosities intent on devouring their favorite faces; not a man noticed the shivering blur perched on the hitch bar below. The ropes were tough, but through feel and elbow grease, Mia sawed them loose, leaving only the hook and eyelet linking the wagons together.
One good jolt …
She slipped under the bar and dragged herself along the middle wagon’s belly. The train struck a rock in the sand, bouncing hard, and she held her breath, waiting for the coupling to burst loose. But both the Luminatii’s luck and the hook managed to hold, and, spitting a mouthful of red dirt, Mia crawled on. She coul
d see next to nothing, but the rumbling was close now. Over the thunder of the wheels, hooves and ironsong, she heard a heavy twang, realizing the Luminatii were firing at the closest kraken with the crossbows on the wagon’s flanks. Teeth gritted, nails clawing the wood, she crawled up to the coupling between the fore and middle wagons. And sawing away with her blade, she hacked the tethers loose. The only things holding the train together now were luck and a few pieces of worn metal.
And luck always runs out.
The wagons veered west, headed for rockier ground where the kraken would have a hard time following. Mia clung on for grim life to the foremost wagon’s hitch as the ground grew rougher, the wheels crunching, axels grinding as the trains bounced over divots and potholes and clumps of stone. They crested a small hill, camels frothing under the driver’s whips. The train plunged down, hit a deep trough on the other side. Couplings groaned. Soldiers cursed. And in a flurry of dust and gravel and shrieking iron, the rearmost wagon broke free.
Timbers snapping, the hitch bar ploughed into the ground and the wagon flipped upright, balancing on its snout for a few torturous seconds before rolling end over end. The twenty-odd men inside were flung about like toys, screaming and shouting and crashing atop one another, thrown through the tearing canvas or crushed beneath tumbling supply crates. The wagon flipped end over end, skidding to a halt on its roof, a broken, splintered ruin.
Cries of alarm rose from the middle wagon. Screams of horror as something huge rose up out of the sand near the wreck and set to work, maw yawning wide, tentacles flailing. Men and camels running or dying, red sand drenched redder still, their comrades in the fleeing train helpless but to stare and pray. But as ill fortune would have it, one of the Luminatii had the common sense to wonder how the rear wagon had broken loose, leaned out over the tray and saw the couplings between fore and mid-wagons had been sawn away. He frowned, sure it must be a trick of the light, squinting at the strange … blur that seemed to be perched atop the hitch. Wondering what he was looking at for the few brief seconds it took that blur to rise up, lean in close and push a gravebone stiletto right into his eye.