by Jack Conner
“Sounds like you got the job done.”
"Well ... not quite. We didn't send off the message to the navies. The transmitter was destroyed."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"How are we going to call in the navies?" Janx said.
"I ... don't know."
But Janx wore a thoughtful expression.
While the convoy that was to take them to the Triarch’s house formed up, Janx and Sheridan both lit cigarettes, and Avery took the time to study the old whaler. Janx really did look quite haggard.
“Janx,” Avery asked, trying to be as delicate as he could, “are you all right?”
Janx said nothing. His eyelids twitched, and his gaze roved over the buildings to all sides, then seemed to find a break between them. He looked west, of course. Sadly, he nodded.
“You’re thinking of Segrul, aren’t you?” Avery said.
Janx grimaced. “He’s comin’. Could happen any moment. Every second we’re on this rock is one second closer to me comin’ to grips with him. And when that happens …”
Avery regarded him. “Yes?”
Janx’s free hand curled into a fist, then uncurled. A disturbing air of tension surrounded him, as with a rope about to snap.
“Janx,” Avery said, softly, exploringly.
“Yeah?”
Avery opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t think of what. He knew a desperate need for revenge drove Janx, that it imbued every fiber of his being, and, try as he might, Avery could see no way to ameliorate that. He couldn’t talk Janx out of revenge. Even to do so seemed ridiculous, as well as a dishonor to Hildra’s memory. There was only one thing he could think of, really, that made any sense, at least as far as curbing Janx’s attitude was concerned (for it was on the tip of Avery’s tongue to say something like I’ll help you hold the bastard down):
“Janx,” he tried again. “Remember the mission. That comes first. Okay? We get that Monastery open at all costs. Even if Segrul’s head gets offered to us on a silver platter, if it’s a choice between taking it or opening the Monastery, you know what we have to do.”
A long silence stretched. Smoke curled up from between Janx’s teeth. A bit of it, just a tiny whiff, escaped from one edge of the leather patch over his nose hole. At long last Janx let out a breath and said, “I’ll do what I can.”
Avery knew that was the best he was going to get. Janx would hold himself at bay … to whatever limits he could. Even he wasn’t strong enough to suppress the hate that burned inside him or deny the spirit of Hildra that cried out for revenge, if only in his mind.
Soon enough the small convoy meant to bear Avery, Janx and Sheridan to the Triarch's mansion formed up, and the three hunkered in a jeep between two tanks toward a section of the city also along the cliffs. Triarch Nethem himself, homeward bound, rode in the front passenger seat, while Avery’s party crammed in the back. As he went, Avery saw the shelled buildings teetering on the cliffside and the many candles flickering along pocked brick walls. Now would come the clean-up. It’s almost over. Finally. I’d thought the Octunggen War was finished when I activated the Device, but it’s only just now wrapping up. And none too soon.
To the left gaped the sea, crashing and foaming, lightning blasting off from the waves. Over the water, clouds thickened, and multi-colored lights played among them so that whole banks glowed indigo or teal. It was both beautiful and disturbing.
“It’s gearin’ up again,” Janx said. His dark eyes gazed out over the water, his face expressionless.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Avery. Another storm was soon to come.
“It will be worse next time,” Sheridan said. “And worse the time after that. And then, soon, it won’t be worse at all, it will just never die down, and this won’t be our world anymore.”
“The Atomic World,” Janx said, rubbing his whiskered jaw.
Triarch Nethem swiveled in his seat. They’d been speaking in Ghenisan, but he’d evidently understood enough to make him curious, even apprehensive. “Can you tell me more of this Atomic World?”
Before they could answer, a soldier shouted from the top of the tank in front. The group quit speaking and glanced ahead, then pulled in their breaths. Something twisted in Avery’s belly, and he felt as if the ground were still shaking beneath him. Because, directly ahead, zeppelins drifted down from the gray clouds, dozens of them—no, scores. Each one seemed different from the other, and all showed patches and idiosyncratic augmentations, such as gun blisters thrusting out from places they shouldn’t normally thrust or crude graffiti art of naked women adorning their sides, but one and all lowered toward the city.
“We were too late,” Janx said.
“Are those … ?” the Triarch started, then broke off as a fit seemed to shake him. Gathering himself, he tried again: “Are those … ?”
“I’m afraid so,” Avery heard himself say, as bomb bay doors opened on the undersides of the zeppelins. “The pirates are here.”
Chapter 8
“Cover!” Sheridan said. “We need to turn this convoy around and get to cover!”
The zeppelins drifted over the land and began dropping bombs. Great bursts of yellow and red rose up from the fore, and fire began consuming whole houses, then spreading. Dirigibles swarmed out from the zeppelins and gunfire cracked from over the sides of their gunwales. The tanks of the convoy thundered, and on rocky peaks all around the islanders’ anti-aircraft defenses launched into motion, missiles and rounds streaking through the air, but even Avery could see they were too late and too scanty to turn the tide.
Triarch Nethem gasped as a mansion on a nearby hill collapsed in a cloud of smoke and flame. “That was Nori’s house!”
Nori, Avery knew, was Ista’s mother. That meant that even had the girl lived until today, she would have likely died when that bomb struck.
The zeppelins began to fan out over the city. One wilted, struck by artillery, and sagged toward the ground, fire spreading along it. Another dropped a cluster of bombs on the peak the artillery had come from, and a great flame rose out from it. One of the wings of the aerial fleet swung straight toward the Triach’s convoy. The vehicles in it had slammed to a halt, and both tanks and soldiers fired indiscriminately at the airships. The sounds of the tanks’ booms deafened Avery, and he leapt with every crash.
“They’re gettin’ closer!” Janx shouted to the Triarch. “Do somethin’!”
Nethem perched there, paralyzed, his eyes riveted on the approaching doom. One of the zeppelins heaved into position right over the convoy.
“Run!” Avery said.
He scrambled out of the jeep and into an alley between two stout walls. After a moment Janx and Sheridan joined him. The ground jumped under them, and a great noise filled Avery’s ears. When he spun back, gasping, he saw that bombs had struck the convoy, and fires raged from piles of blackened metal and rubber where the vehicles had just been. Nethem was dead.
“He's gone,” Avery said, feeling a swell of grief and dismay. The zeppelin was moving away. “One Triarch in jail, one dead, and one grieving for her daughter. I hope she'll maintain enough presence of mind to organize the islanders and coordinate with Layanna."
“This is just to soften Vinithir up,” Janx said. “Soon the sea ships’ll be comin’, mark my words. The land troops must’ve already taken out most of the anti-aircraft guns.”
One of the walls juddered next to them, and a nearby concussion rattled Avery’s eardrums.
“We have to get where we can see what’s comin’,” Janx said.
They moved out into a main road and threaded their way up it, past stopped cars, flaming debris and fleeing townsfolk, in the direction the zeppelins were coming from. When they would see one nearing their trajectory, they would cut down an alley and around it, then keep going. Finally, breathless, they were on the other side of the wave of airships. They took stock in the archway of a bombed-out shop.
They had few weapons, little mo
ney and no easy way out. For the first time in a long time, Avery had no plan and saw no way forward. Things had been spiraling out of control for some time, but now the shit had really struck the whirling blades and the whole world had gone mad. The pirates were here, but the navies weren’t on their way to save the day.
Lost, he thought. We’re lost. And it’s all my fault. Stealing the weapons of the gods had been his idea, after all.
“Don’t look so hangdog, Doc,” Janx said.
Avery shook his head. He wanted to say something encouraging, but hope had deserted him. At last, in despair, he said, “I’m not sure what to do.”
They stared at him, then each other. Sheridan let out a long breath.
“It must have cost you a lot to say that,” she said.
He didn’t reply, but she was right. Since this whole affair had begun, he had prided himself on generally being the one with some plan or idea to get them out of whatever jam they were in. But if there was a way now, he didn’t see it.
“The navies,” Janx said suddenly. “We need them, more than ever. Layanna may show up with her army, or she may not, but whatever she brings to the table won’t be enough to beat back Segrul and Thraish.”
“And we’ll need to outfit those ships with Ygrithan weaponry,” Avery said. “If we prevail. But first we need to find a transmitter.”
Janx nodded, once. “Then it’s simple. We use Segrul’s.”
“Segrul’s transmitter,” Sheridan said, as if she hadn’t heard correctly.
“The bastard will have one, remember,” Janx said. “To communicate with whatever of his ships aren’t with the armada at the moment—and the zeps.”
Avery stared at the big man with horror. “Sneaking aboard his flagship is impossible.”
“Won’t have to,” Janx said. “He’ll keep it with him, in case he needs to send word or receive reports. Assuming he takes over a house in town, all we need to do is find a way in.”
“A house?” said Sheridan. “You don’t really mean Segrul intends to stay, do you? Pirates don’t occupy cities.”
“Yeah, an’ they don’t hit the capital of the Ysstral Empire, either, sweetheart, but they did. They can hit Salanth, they can fuckin’ murder Vinithir.”
They began to hear sounds of a great deal of gunfire and more artillery booms from the direction of the main avenues leading down to the harbor. There the cliffs fell away steeply to the sea, Avery knew, and to reach the harbor one had to make one’s way down one of a series of well-maintained switchbacks lined by fruit trees and statues; Avery had admired them on the too-brief drive along the cliff.
“Sounds like reinforcements are comin’ up from the harbor,” Janx said.
“We should fall back,” Sheridan said. “Regroup with Nethem’s people, find his Vice-Triarch or whatever. Organize a resistance. We didn’t go through all this to lose now.”
“No,” Avery said.
They looked at him.
“No?” said Janx.
Avery rubbed his mustache, then realized his hand was trembling and dropped it. “If we run, we’ll never get this chance again.”
“What chance?” said Sheridan.
“It’s like Janx said. We have to find Segrul.”
“It’s the only way to send that message,” Janx agreed. “But how?”
“We wait for Segrul to set up shop in whatever part of town he decides to occupy, assuming the islanders don’t throw him back, and assuming he does decide to occupy the city, or whatever part of it he can conquer. At any rate, we can’t afford to delay or to get on the wrong side of the conflict. That means no falling back, no regrouping. We find an area the pirates are moving toward, go to it, hide out and wait for them to pass, then pop up, locate Segrul, infiltrate his camp and send off our message.”
“Gods,” Janx said. “You don’t think of easy plans, do ya, Doc?”
Avery wanted to smile but didn’t. Still, now that they had a plan, even a mad one, he felt better, clearer of purpose. “Maybe along the way we’ll get a chance to steal the Sleeper’s head or murder Thraish, if he’s around,” he said.
“Let’s hope he’s not,” Sheridan said. “We’re fresh out of sap.”
“Maybe we’ll get a chance to cut off Segrul’s balls,” Janx said, and hate dripped from his voice.
Avery made his own voice stern. “This is not a chance for you to get revenge for Hildra, Janx.”
“Fuck it is. I may never get another go at him.”
Sheridan fixed the big man with her gunmetal eyes. “Don’t fuck this up, you ape.”
“Who you callin’ ape, bitch?”
She stepped forward. “What did you call me?”
Avery shoved them apart, or tried to. It was like moving boulders.
“Focus,” he said. “We have a mission.”
Janx swore. “Fine, then. But let’s get a move on before my better sense takes over.”
The pirates were moving into position, and Avery could hear the sound of their gunfire popping from another part of town. The pirates’ sea ships had begun shelling the city in addition to the zeppelins’ bombs, which had begun to taper off. Police and army battalions could be heard firing back, but there was no doubt that the citizens were overrun. Sirens screamed from all over as ambulances and fire trucks raced hither and thither. Smoke stung Avery’s eyes, and he heard screaming from every quarter. This was a nightmare. Avery heard hammers nailing boards across doors and windows, and saw many Eberlins loading guns.
Soon the three saw people fleeing the chaos of the battlefront. Golden-skinned men and women, some clutching babies or young children, fled from the violence, often bare-footed. A few led or rode ilithins, and the necks of the long-legged, long-necked birds reached above the beginning of the third floor of buildings nearby.
The three shrank against the wall as a tide of pirates came by, cursing and firing. Some dragged people out of their homes or shops, often young women and girls.
“Bastards,” Sheridan said.
Avery started to mention the atrocities he'd witnessed Octunggen commit, but he held himself back. Now wasn't the time.
“Segrul runs these bastards," Janx said. "Don’t expect puppies and ice cream.”
Avery brought them to a halt and tried to heave a manhole cover clear. He couldn’t do it, but Janx could, and in moments they stared down into the sewer’s blackness.
“You sure about this, Doc? Maybe we should wait it out in the woods outside of town.”
“Then we’d be beyond the enemy lines. We wouldn’t be able to get back in. If we hide it out and then come up when things are quieter, we’ll be on the inside, and we’ll be able to maneuver more effectively.”
One at time, they climbed down into the sewer, and at last Janx shut the manhole cover behind them. Even as the metal lid rattled shut, Avery heard the pop of gunfire from down the streets. The group huddled in the darkness as the sounds of war continued, crashing and thudding right above them. Avery heard muted screams and the wails of the dying. It seemed to go on for a long time.
Avery and Sheridan settled along the wall together, his arm around her shoulders, as the grenades and mortars pounded above. Enough light streamed in from a nearby gutter that they could see, if dimly, but the lack of visibility was probably a blessing. The stench proved to be the real problem.
“I think they need to fix their damned sewer,” Janx said.
“Maybe they depend on a local river that’s dried up,” Sheridan said.
“Whatever. It ain’t pleasant.”
Gunfire rattled. The sounds of the violence had moved past them, but it hadn’t gone far. The pirates’ advance still pushed outward. There seemed little chance the tide would turn and the islanders, disorganized and embattled as they were, would be able to push the enemy back. Rats squeaked in the sewers, and from somewhere Avery heard the gurgle of water; somewhere it still ran down here. Janx and Sheridan were right, though; it wasn’t cleaning the waste out. He felt nauseous with the
stench of it.
“This reminds me of a time …” Janx said, and, despite everything, Avery sat straighter. He could do with one of Janx’s stories, something to distract him from the stench around him and the horror above.
“Oh?”
Janx heaved a weary sigh and launched into it. For a time he spun a story, and the gunshots and screams seemed to fade as Avery found himself plunged into a world of criminals and adventure.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Sheridan said, when Janx had finished.
Smiling, Avery said, “I do.”
They remained in the sewers for several more hours until the vague sunlight that had been streaming in became more vague, then gray, than nonexistent. Darkness draped them, and the three went long minutes without speaking.
Finally, Sheridan said, “It’s time. The fighting’s over, and it should be dark enough for us to move around without being seen if we’re careful. Follow me. I’m probably the one here most experienced at this sort of thing.”
"Sure you're real proud of that," Janx said.
They groped their way back to the ladder and ascended. Sheridan had allowed Janx to go up first so that he could move the manhole cover for them, and he did, with a grunt and a swear. They squeezed out into the street and sought the darkness of the nearest alley. Avery only hoped their smell didn’t give them away. He couldn’t detect it any longer, but he was sure the reek of the sewer still clung to them. Pressing their backs against a stucco wall, they waited. They could hear the occasional scream and pop of gunfire, but the shots were isolated now, not part of some battle. Threading their way through the network of alleys, the three pressed inward toward the center of town.
“Look,” Janx said, and pointed upward. Avery squinted into the floodlights of a passing dirigible. There were many, a ragtag, makeshift fleet derived from the ships of many countries—the pirates’ aerial fleet. Several vast zeppelins drifted above the low-flying dirigibles. The three hunkered low till the dirigibles passed.
They came to a stop at a plaza, with Triarch Nethem’s mansion (it was too large, opulent and well-situated to be anything else) on one side and a grand courthouse on the other, and the group peered out to see pirates herding a group of prisoners into a just-assembled pen; the area was flooded with lights from beams of dirigibles above, as well as from the headlights of vehicles the pirates had managed to commandeer. Not many, it seemed. Segrul himself led the pirate overseers, and he gleefully lashed a whip with one misshapen limb. He limped, though, and moved slowly, and the procession moved slowly to accommodate him. He was truly an awful sight, Avery thought, a great blubbery white shape mutated to be more clam than man, with rolls of strange fat and limbs grown into shapelessness. Distinguishing his face was almost impossible. No wonder he’d been driven to such hate, Avery thought, with genuine pity.