He turned and began to stride back through the crowd. “I threw this out so you might have it. I did not throw it out so you could simply display your strength over each other—allow your might to make obvious which of you is strongest. That is the way of the Society of Arms—the place where I was raised, and whose ethos I rejected. Strength does not make you mighty, and it does not make you right.” He took a step back up in front of Alaric and the others; a fire was blazing bright in the building behind them now, smoke pouring out of the upper windows. “For any one of you who wishes to test their strength because you think it makes you right, I invite you to step forward now, and challenge me. Let us see who is strongest.”
“Let us see indeed,” came a voice from the back rank of the crowd, and a man in a knee-length black leather coat with a white armband—the Machine’s symbology on it—came striding forth with five others trailing him. He shoved his way through, and then the crowd started to clear for him, screams and cries as people saw him, saw what he carried—
A pistol.
Cyrus saw the glint of dark menace as the man started to raise it, as did each of his fellows. Six pistols, all traveling upward, the crowd screaming and surging out of the way to give them clear aim—
Right at Cyrus—
And the others.
Cyrus reached for Praelior, shoved his hand toward the hilt even as he moved swiftly, trying to thrust himself in front of one figure in particular—
Vara.
But a volley of thunderous shots rang out before his hand could reach the hilt and before he could throw himself in front of her. The pistols flashed like lightning, like spells crashing through the canyons of the Reikonos streets, and Cyrus watched the smoke puff from the barrels and knew that he could not stop the bullets from finding their intended targets.
19.
The sound of metal bullets on his armor, their impact clashing plate against chainmail underpinnings, rang through Cyrus down to his very bones. They turned his armor into almost a bell, clanging constantly against him as he moved sideways to try and shield Vara with his body. The sound of the thunderous shots rang in his ears as he moved.
His fingers brushed the pommel of Praelior and suddenly the frenzy of movement—the tightening of his every muscle as he surged forward, of the screams he could now hear from the crowd, slowed impossibly, the drip of sweat down his back—all of these things ran through him along with the bile of fear as he turned and bowed his head forward, slipping in front of Vara.
But the shots were already loosed, and there was nothing to be done.
Cyrus had lost count of how many he’d felt. Three? Four, perhaps? Now that he had Praelior in hand, his wits seemed to come back to him. Vara was safely behind him, and—
She shoved him, pushing him aside so she could step forward, Ferocis in her own hand. “Are you mad?” she asked, eyes blazing as she stared at him, speaking so rapidly that it probably sounded like gibberish to anyone not handling a godly weapon. “I have armor of my own, you fool!” She was flushed and burning at the cheeks, pale white skin lit up with a fiery red glow.
“I was trying to protect you from this new threat,” Cyrus shot back, “it came so fast—”
“Yes, well,” Vara said, “none of it came my way, and these idiots are simply standing there, almost unmoving, now that we have weapons in hand.”
“I suggest we dispense with this enemy,” Alaric said, his own sword drawn, speaking just as rapidly as them. “Before they can conjure some other honorless devilry with which to attack us.”
Cyrus leapt, aware of Vara and Alaric following. They covered the distance off the steps and down into the street before the men—clearly toughs in the same mold as the others Cyrus had encountered in his dealings thus far with the Machine—could recoil from the vision of foes descending upon them in a blur.
With his first strike, Cyrus tore apart the one who’d led them. He was not merciful in his strike, cleaving the man uncleanly a little above the waist. Without healing spells, there would be no surviving the attack, and that gave Cyrus a measure of thin triumph as he cut him through. The next fell easily, and the next, and then—
Cyrus turned back to find that Alaric and Vara had done their parts, and the six men were dead or dying in the street.
“My—my lord!” a woman said, raising a hand to Cyrus, emerging from the crowd, which had stepped back to let the battle unfold when they’d seen the guns. “You … you’re unharmed!”
“Did you expect any less?” Cyrus asked.
“You moved … so fast,” another man said, mouth slightly agape. His jowls were hanging, and his eyes were unfocused. “I could scarcely see you. Truly … you are him.”
“I am him,” Cyrus said, his voice low and menacing. “And woe be unto anyone who challenges me.”
“I challenge you all the time,” Vara said, so swiftly she knew none would understand her. “It works out rather well for me.”
“You’re special,” Cyrus replied under his breath.
“I’m special, too, I’ll have you know,” Vaste said, only a step or two behind them, scraping the tip of his staff on the gutter, blood and other refuse of battle sliding down it. Cyrus looked; a few steps from Vaste lay a man with his skull split asunder. I guess the troll managed to get one as well …
“Few would argue it,” Alaric said, his own blade covered in gore. “Perhaps now we should—”
“… Tend to your wounded?” A soft voice from behind them prompted Cyrus to turn. His eyes fell upon the steps to the building, where stood a figure with crimson spreading across his white robes—
“Curatio,” Alaric breathed, and he was at the healer’s side in but a moment, his sword sheathed. “Brother. How—”
“I do not possess a godly weapon for speed nor a complete set of armor, unfortunately,” Curatio said, holding up his hand, which bled from a wound in the middle of it. He grimaced, and it pumped a small volume of red down to soak his sleeve. The robes were soaked almost to his elbow, and he tried to flex his hand but it ended with a grimace. “I was struck in the volley, unfortunately.” Another little drizzle of blood came pulsing out. “I believe … this may be a problem.”
“You know what else is a problem?” Vaste pushed up to them, looking down at Curatio’s wound. “Vegetables. Vegetables are always a problem. They don’t taste very good, and you’re supposed to eat them.”
“You don’t,” Vara said acidly.
“And apparently that’s a problem,” Vaste said. “Look how short-lived my people are.”
Curatio let out a small gasp of pain, and stared daggers at Vaste. “How did they hit me and miss you?”
“Not because I ate vegetables, that’s for sure,” Vaste said, patting his ample belly.
“I can still see the bullet in there,” Cyrus said, peering down at the wound. A small black piece of dark steel glinted within, hidden under the pulsing beats of the flowing blood. With each pulse, it would emerge for a second like a ship at the shore on low tide, and a moment later be swallowed up again.
“I have tried a healing spell,” Curatio said, grimacing, “but it only buried it further. I shall need to remove this … metal ball … before I can properly close even such a small wound with magic.”
“Do you truly think your magic is up to this task?” Alaric asked. “With the limits as they are?”
“If this were buried in my belly? Perhaps not,” Curatio said, forcing a smile. “But I think, in the hand … yes. We shall have to hurry, though. I need to return to Sanctuary.”
“Damn,” Alaric said and looked at the bodies in the street. There was a wild murmur running through the crowd; all the money had been scooped up, but still the crowd remained, watching Cyrus, waiting for him to speak. Cyrus looked back at them, a little warily. He wasn’t sure how to leave this, but he felt a pressing need to move on.
“We need to get to the coal yard,” Cyrus said, then nodded at the fallen bodies of the pistoleers who had attacked them
. “Staying here will draw more interest from the Machine, and for no purpose. If we mean to rescue Shirri’s mother, we need to be on about it.”
“I need to remove this ball,” Curatio said. “Much the same as I once had to remove the water from your lungs before you could heal.”
“I’m not saying you don’t,” Cyrus said, “I’m just saying—we could do it here, if need be. A little whiskey, a dagger—”
“On the balance,” Curatio said, “I would rather do this in the Halls of Healing, where I have disinfectant at the ready to stave off infection and clean cloth to buttress the wound while it heals.” He arched his eyebrow and nodded up at the candle shop behind them, where black smoke churned out of the broken windows on every floor. “Also, this building is on fire, and I make no guarantees as to how long it will be before it collapses.”
“This is a poor place from which to perform a surgery,” Vaste said, and he reached down, steadying the elf with an arm around his shoulders. “New plan—I take Curatio back to Sanctuary to heal, and the three of you—” he looked sideways, and Cyrus followed his gaze to where Shirri emerged, watching them suspiciously, from the crowd, “—you four, I suppose—move on to the next target.”
“I don’t think we should divide our forces,” Alaric said. “Not in the face of their superior numbers.”
“If we don’t get to the coal yard now,” Cyrus said, “we’re going to lose our advantage of surprise, and their superior numbers are going to count for a lot more. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“I see no need to hold up your continued progress,” Curatio said, grimacing. “I can deal with this. Doubly so with Vaste’s help. It is a minor matter, but I need Sanctuary’s aid to keep it from becoming a much greater one. This is little different from removing an arrow, save for I have nothing with which to grasp the damned thing. Let us be on our way, and you on yours, and we shall rendezvous soon enough.”
“All right,” Alaric relented. Cyrus watched the Ghost, and it looked to be a near thing. “But as soon as we are done at the coal yard, I will return to Sanctuary to find you there, and bring you along with us via—”
“Via turning into smoke and dragging us nauseatingly through the ether, yes,” Vaste said. “My stomach will look forward to it not at all.” He hefted Curatio and started down the sidewalk, past Shirri, back the way they had come. “Hold on, old man, I’ll get us to Sanctuary in what’ll probably feel like the blink of an eye to you—so … say, a year?”
“Hilarious,” Curatio said as the two healers began to recede through the crowd, people moving out of the way to let them pass unchecked.
“I’ve often been told I am,” Vaste said.
“Probably by dead people who simply want to humor you so that you will talk to them,” Curatio said.
“Or by alive people who wish to get bullets removed from their hands,” Vaste said.
Curatio paused for a moment. “You know, you really are endlessly entertaining, a fellow of near-infinite jest.”
“Better.”
Cyrus watched them go, their banter receding beyond his ability to hear it. He looked out to the crowd for a moment, wondering how best to disperse them. Alaric stirred behind him, and then whispered in his ear. “It would be best if this mob went on about their day and did not follow us to where we intend to go next.”
“Aye,” Vara said, joining Alaric at his other shoulder, “it will be much more difficult to hide our approach should we appear at the head of an excited crowd that takes up half the street.”
“I’ll work on it,” Cyrus said, and stepped up. The smoke was already drifting into the sky behind him, fire starting to appear at the windows of the Machine’s outpost. “Good people … return to your homes. Go on about your business.”
“But—but my lord!” one of the women shouted, and he recognized her as the one with the massive hoop skirt. It was sullied and tarnished now, looking as though it had been stepped on many times in the scramble for the money. “You have returned! Should we not remain with you?”
Cyrus paused, then shook his head. “I have much work to do. This city … needs me to go and do … stuff.”
“Very smooth,” Vara said.
“I’m trying to keep our plans secret,” Cyrus muttered, then raised his voice again. “You will hear of my doings, and you will know that I am the one doing them—”
“Who taught you language?” Alaric asked. “Was it Erkhardt? Because he was supposed to aid you, not set you back to infancy.”
Cyrus cleared his throat. “You will know it is I by my deeds. I will cleanse this city of many troubles. Tell everyone you meet that I have returned. Tell them that I am working here, in the streets and in the shadows, to ferret out wrongdoing. Tell them—”
“Tell them little else, for we have somewhere to be,” Vara muttered.
“Tell them I’m back,” Cyrus said, “and watch for my sign. Help one another—and await the day when I call upon you to join me.” With that, he raised his sword. “For it will come—and soon.”
20.
Vaste
“I know I complain about how terrible this place is—and it is terrible,” Vaste said, walking with Curatio, his arm threaded under the elf’s, helping to keep him on his feet. “But … it is somewhat nicer than in our day. At least this part of it.” He scanned the streets with their high buildings of brick that rose into the sky on either side of them. “And tall. So tall. It’s impressive, really.”
“It’s like walking in a box canyon,” Curatio said, wincing, blood still pumping from his injured hand. He was faltering, Vaste knew, the steps becoming more difficult the longer they walked. “You never know who is watching you from above, or what bandits might come from a hidden cave to try and snatch your purse.”
“Walked in a lot of box canyons, have you?” Vaste asked.
“Indeed,” Curatio grunted, laboring as he walked. “Not intentionally, but when you travel the lands as much as I have, you do tend to find yourself in a few over twenty thousand years or so. The last one I went into—and this was slightly before Sanctuary—I found myself in a nest of bandits and was forced to use lightning and fire to kill them all.”
“A proud day, I’m sure,” Vaste said, hearing a peculiar sort of drag to Curatio’s words.
“Well, it was nice to stretch the old spells without fear of getting dubbed a heretic,” Curatio said, still struggling. “So I suppose that was one advantage.”
“Pretty unlikely that you’d be so fortunate as to go unwatched in this sort of man-made box canyon,” Vaste said. “Why, there are people everywhere now.”
And there were. Reikonos was bustling to life, the sun up, the people in motion. Small crowds made their way down the sidewalks while horse-drawn carriages filled the streets. Vendors were hawking food on the corners, shouting their wares to the heavens. Vendors of fresh and less-than-fresh fruits and vegetables were setting up on the sidewalks. As Vaste passed a cart of turnips, he looked away, making a face. “Revolting.”
“Apparently I need to stave off vegetables to become more like you,” Curatio slurred. “I cannot believe that they failed to find you with a single shot and yet managed to hit me.”
“I had my staff in hand, Curatio,” Vaste said, laboring only a little under the elf’s weight. It was of greater difficulty to stoop to thread his arm around the elf than it was to carry him whole. But probably less eye-catching, if only marginally. “It was no great difficulty for me to watch where they were aiming those barrels and simply move out of the way before they fired.”
“Ah, devilry,” Curatio said. “Not having a godly weapon has once again cost me greatly.”
“‘Again’?” Vaste asked. “When did it cost you before?”
Curatio let out a long sigh. “When Vidara chose Alaric for her favors over me, of course.”
“Wait … did he actually do anything with her?” Vaste asked. “I thought he rather turned her down.”
“I have no idea,” Curatio s
aid and let out a soft moan of pain. Vaste couldn’t be sure if it was related to his injury or the thought of the former Goddess of Life with Alaric.
“Well, either way,” Vaste said, “she turned on us in the last battle with Bellarum in a desperate gamble to try and save her own hide, so I’d say you did well in avoiding the traitorous wench.”
“Somehow I don’t think my life was all the richer for lacking ten thousand years of companionship with a goddess,” the healer said, sounding quite irritable about it.
“Well, when you put it like that,” Vaste said, “by gods, you should have doubled your efforts.”
“I don’t think that much would have helped either,” Curatio said, voice weakening a smidge.
“Stay with me, Curatio,” Vaste said. “I don’t know if you realize this, but if you pass out, I’m going to have to try and remove that bullet myself, and I’m deathly put off by the mere sight of blood.”
“You’re a healer,” Curatio reminded him.
“Yes, which allows me to magically heal wounds before the sight of them makes me ill,” Vaste said.
Curatio let out a small moan. “Well … I certainly wish I could oblige you in this.”
“Me too,” Vaste said, scanning the street. “Me too.”
There seemed to be no shortage of humans in this place. Where the Reikonos of his day had been composed of trolls and dark elves and gnomes, the occasional dwarf and who knew what else, the number of humans in this one was overwhelming. The only difference seemed to be more variance in the shades of their skin. “That’s new,” he muttered to himself, seeing a human with near ebony skin walking down the street, dressed much more smartly than most in this district, and in a very different style. He had a serious bearing, and went right past without giving Vaste’s stooped-over frame nor Curatio much of a look. “Did you see …?” Vaste started to say.
“I see pain,” Curatio said, voice growing more weary. “And more pain. That is all, at the moment.”
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