by Sam Sykes
Part of me wanted to leap out and chase him, to apologize to him for all the trouble I’d caused, to try to tell him that I never should have done it and that, for all the bloodshed and carnage, it was worth it.
But I wouldn’t have it said that Sal the Cacophony was a liar.
And so I did the kindest thing I could think of. I eased my hand off the sword. I sat back down and I let him disappear.
I sat there, staring at the door for a long time. Outside, I heard Liette settle back into her chair. I heard her pick up a book and thumb through it, pretending to read it. I heard her lose her patience and hurl it against the wall before she buried her head in her hands and began to cry.
I pulled the rest of my clothes on and reached for the doorknob. I knew just what to say when I came out, too.
I could be funny and say something like: “Shit, if you cry this much over me while I’m wounded, what the fuck are you going to do when I’m dead?” She’d glare at me angrily; then a smile would slowly creep over her face and she’d look away before she laughed.
Or I could be dramatic and burst out and say: “Until this moment, I have never felt a pain so keen as yours and I would do anything that neither of us had to feel it again.” And she’d cry harder and fall into my arms and we’d hold each other like we did before we knew what each other had done.
Or I could just say nothing, just step out there and take her hands and pull her into me. I could kiss her and let all the blood rush out of my limbs and into my head until we both collapsed to the floor and just lay there, not saying a word and not listening to anything but the need for each other.
Any of those would be good. Any of those would make her stop crying. Any of those would make this feel better.
And yet… I didn’t open the door. I didn’t come out. I didn’t say anything.
Because I knew how it’d end. We’d make our vows—she to never leave me, me to never make her cry again. We’d pretend to be normal for a while and, for a while, it’d feel nice. And then one day I’d look in the mirror and see the scar across my chest and remember the people who had put it there and I’d pick up my gun and then…
And then I’d be staring at this same door again, with her crying on the other side as I tried to figure out what to say, over and over until I finally did her the kindness of dying.
I believed her when she said she’d come back for me, no matter what. I believed she’d do anything to keep me safe. I believed she would fight the Revolution, the Imperium, the Ashmouths, the Freemakers, every last human on the Scar if she thought it would fix me, fix us.
And that’s why I knew I wasn’t going to say anything.
I belted my sword and my gun around my waist. I pulled my luckscarf around my head. I walked to the window of her room and cast one final glance at the door before I pulled the shutters back, pushed the window open, and slipped out onto the roof.
She’d hurt, I knew as I shimmied down the eaves and onto the street. When she went into that room and saw me gone, she’d hurt worse than she ever had. But she’d only hurt once more, only until she realized what scum I was, only until she learned to curse my name, only until she forgot about me and wouldn’t even notice if I ended up in a plot of earth somewhere.
If I stayed… then she’d keep hurting so long as we kept pretending I could ever stop.
Better this way, I told myself. Better to hurt just once. Because I knew what it was to hurt all the time.
I fingered the scar on my chest. It ached.
She would do anything to protect me. I would do the same for her. Turns out this was the only way.
I walked until I found the center of Lowstaff. The sun hung fading in the sky, bleeding orange as it continued to sink below the horizon of the Scar, far away. I stood in the center of the town, staring out over the walls. And then I looked down at my hip.
And the Cacophony looked back, as if to ask where we’d go next.
Somewhere out there were the rest of the names on my list. Maybe I’d go out there and find them. Or maybe I’d just go far away, find Congeniality and the whiskey in her saddlebags and get drunk as shit. Or maybe I’d just find the biggest, ugliest, most bloodthirsty thing in the Scar and fight it. Maybe I’d survive. Maybe I wouldn’t.
But there was some small comfort.
I’d be far away from Liette. I’d be far away from Cavric. I’d leave them alone and they’d be safe because of it.
Whatever else they said about Sal the Cacophony, they’d say she didn’t ruin the lives of everyone she cared about.
And that would be enough.
Yeah…
So, anyway, that was about the time the explosion hit.
FIFTY-SEVEN
LOWSTAFF
I found my feet upon a world of broken glass and laughing fire.
My head reeled—the blast had knocked my feet from beneath me and the sense from my head. Glass from shattered windows crunched under my feet, the only sound I could hear through the ringing in my skull.
The world returned in fragmented shrieks—the crackle of horror, the distant cries of people smothered beneath the wail of warning sirens. Sight followed sound, revealing the streets of Lowstaff.
And, as was the fashion these days, they were on fire.
I saw a smoldering black crater where something had struck, a black maw in the streets belching smoke. And, as if this were horribly funny, flames lapped at the various buildings, laughing through mouthfuls of wood and tinder as they devoured homes and shops and stray rubble.
I saw the people flooding out of their homes to join the stream of people rushing panicked through the streets. Their mouths were open and wailing, but I couldn’t hear them over the sound of the siren, speaking a tinny language that only a few people could understand.
And those people came flooding out in a blue tide.
Revolutionaries came streaming out of their cadre in a solid formation of blue coats and gunpikes. Sergeants stood by, bellowing orders and firing hand cannons into the air to be heard over the siren that called them to battle. They pushed through or stomped over the civilians that got in their path as they rushed to set up battle formations, establishing sandbag barricades and setting up mortars.
I wagered they had about as much idea of what was happening as I did, yet they already had their answer. Whatever had happened, whatever had come, they were going to respond by shooting it.
This couldn’t possibly go wrong.
Fuck if I had any better ideas what to do, though. I came rushing out onto the street, looking for some indication of what might have happened, how I could help or, failing that, to get the hell away from it.
What I wasn’t looking for was a hand wrapping around my waist, but I got it anyway. Something grabbed me, pulled me into an alley between buildings, and pressed me ungently against a wall. I pulled the Cacophony out and pulled the trigger. A click greeted me.
Ah, right. I hadn’t loaded the last of my ammo back in Dogsjaw.
Just as well, though—I would have hated to put a hole through Cavric’s head. Though, with the wide-eyed terror that was etched across his face right now, it might have been an improvement.
“What’s happening?” he asked, breathless.
“You don’t grab a person and haul them bodily into an alley unless you’re the one with answers, Cavric,” I snarled, shoving him away. “It just isn’t done.”
“That’s the assembly siren.” He pointed up, as though I could see the screeching sound in the air. “Lowstaff is under attack.”
That would explain the big, smoldering crater in the street, I thought to say. But I doubted that would be helpful right now. I held up a hand for calm.
“By what?” I asked.
“No idea.” He shook his head. “I was just about to go into Cadre Command when I felt the explosion. Then the others came rushing out and there were guns and… I…” He stared at me. “I ran, Sal. I hid from my own people. I… I’ve never done that before.”
I glanced out the alley to all the screaming people, the growing fires, and the many, many angry people holding big metal things designed to kill other people.
“Seems sensible to me,” I said. Yet, weirdly enough, that didn’t seem to soothe him. At seeing the panic etch itself onto his face, I sighed. “All right, we’re not going to know what to do unless we know what’s going on. Come on.”
We hurried down the alley. I put my back against the wall, made a stirrup out of my hands, and bent low. He nodded, getting the idea, before he put his foot into my hands. I grunted, boosting him up to the roof. He scrambled over the ledge, reached down for me, and helped haul me up.
We kept low—Revolutionary snipers were already on the other rooftops. But their long guns were turned toward the northern gate of Lowstaff, and from up here, I could see that the other soldiers also had their sights turned that way. I had just begun to wonder why when the realization hit me like a brick to the face.
Lastlight was up north.
I turned my eyes upward and I saw them. Black wings against the blood orange of the fading sun, alight and flying.
Krikai.
“The Imperium,” I whispered. “The Imperium is coming.”
“What?” Cavric gasped. “Why?”
Because this is a war.
Because they’re out for revenge.
Because who the fuck knows.
I didn’t have an answer. None that Cavric would want to hear, none that would help. This was just more bloodshed, more violence that we’d never be able to explain until we sifted through the ashes left behind.
And I wish that had been true.
But you should know by now that there’s no such thing as random violence. Follow a scar long enough, you’ll trace it back to the knife that carved it, the hand that held it, the grudge that demanded it. I wanted, in my heart and my head, to believe that this was just war. And if I closed my eyes, I could have tricked myself into thinking exactly that.
But then I realized that the Imperium was still at least two miles away. Far too far away for that explosion to have come from them.
And then I looked down.
The soldiers didn’t see him. A second ago, he hadn’t been there. And when a portal opened in their midst and the thin man with a mop of unruly hair stepped out, barely anyone seemed to notice him, let alone stop him as he raised his arms, as his eyes glowed a bright violet.
I heard the Lady’s song.
And then Vraki the Gate started killing.
It happened in three seconds. One second for the air to split apart, portals torn open. One more for a Revolutionary to look up and notice him and begin to shout a warning. And one last for his cry to be drowned under the sound of horrific baying as the nith hounds came leaping out.
And then the screaming started.
The Revolutionaries scattered, their formation broken as they emptied their weapons at the fiends that had appeared in their midst. The crack of gunpikes and the thunder of bullets ended in gory sputters as they struck the horrors rushing toward them. Some hounds fell. More didn’t, leaping up to seize Revolutionaries in human hands and start tearing pieces off.
A halo of corpses fell in Vraki’s wake. The Revolutionaries went down—screaming, stabbing, or simply silent in uncomprehending horror—yet he never so much as looked at them. Instead, he threw his head back and his scream shook the town to its foundations.
“CACOPHONY.”
Me.
He’s here for me.
That thought reached down from my head with little black fingers and seized my heart in a cold grip.
The portals. He had followed me through the portals, knew where I had gone. He followed me here. And the Imperium had followed him. And now they were here, to fight him and the Revolution just like they had fought in Lastlight because I had started the war in Lastlight and there were going to be more deaths and more blood and more fire and more and more and more…
No.
A voice. Burning. Seething. The pain in my hand, that ugly little harp, plucked itself and drowned my thoughts beneath a wave of agony. I looked down to my hip. The Cacophony looked back to me.
And he smiled.
And I knew what I had to do.
“Cavric.”
I looked to him. He was staring at the violence below, at his friends’ corpses being mutilated as the nith hounds started grafting human pieces to their bodies, with empty eyes.
“Cavric.”
I seized him by the shoulders, forced him to look at me.
“Where’s Congeniality?”
“Huh… who?” His voice came out on a breathless whisper.
“My bird, Cavric. Where’s my bird?”
“I… the…” He shook his head, forced the ghosts from his eyes. “The stables. I took her to the stables. West end of town.”
I nodded. “I need to get down there. I need you down there, too.”
“Right… right.” He bobbed his head back, numb. “I have to… We have to fight…”
“I have to fight,” I snapped back. “You have to get the people out of here.”
At that, the fear, the ghosts, everything fled from his eyes. He looked at me intently, his brow furrowed.
“The people?” he asked. “But the Revolution…”
“You think your fucking Great General is going to help them?”
I hadn’t meant to snarl. It had just slipped out. But I had no more patience. No more time. And not much of a plan. Cavric drew in a deep breath, nodded.
“I’ll get them all out,” he said.
“As many as you can,” I said.
“All of them,” he replied.
I sighed, nodded. “All of them.” I pointed to the west. “I’m going to get Vraki’s attention, draw him to the west gate. Imperials are coming in from the north. Get people out through the south. Tell them to keep running.”
I pulled Jeff out of his sheath—a beat-up, dingy sword wasn’t ideal when going up against a mage, let alone a Prodigy. But what the fuck else was I going to do? Seduce him?
Probably not after I broke his face, no.
I reached the edge of the building. Cavric called after me.
“What are you going to do once you’ve got his attention?”
I glanced over my shoulder. A grin creased my face. I shot him a wink.
“The best I can,” I replied.
Then I swung my legs over the edge.
“Or maybe die, I guess. We’ll see how it goes.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
LOWSTAFF
In the face of death, Sergeant Courageous was as defiant as his namesake.
Blood poured from a wound above his brow, sealing one eye shut beneath a layer of red. His body shook with every breath, life escaping out his mouth on hot, ragged gasps. His hand still clutched tightly about his officer’s sword—which would have been a truly impressive sight, had his arm still been attached to his body. Regardless, he swallowed blood down a throat constricted by an iron grip and scowled up with one good eye.
“Against foe innumerable,” he snarled through bloodied breath, “in the face of adversity implacable, beneath storm unceasing, the Glorious Revolution marches on.” He tried to defiantly spit blood, only to find it dribbling out his chin and onto the hand wrapped around his throat. “Ten… ten thousand years.”
Vraki the Gate did not seem particularly impressed.
“Were that the strength of your ideology matched the skill of your speech-writers,” he replied, sneering. “I have heard the wail of pigs and the baying of nuls and found it beyond even my skill to tell the difference between the two.”
He waved a hand. A portal opened above his fingers. A blade of jagged stone and bristling thorns descended into his waiting palm. He angled it an inch away from Courageous’s quivering eye.
“And if you cannot feed a more worthy society, then you are but gristle to be hewn with a sharp edge and left for scavengers upon the earth,” Vraki whispered harshly. “Die
with the comfort that for all your noise, neither you nor your petty Revolution were enough to warrant the ire of Vraki the Gate this night.”
You know, as much as I was loath to admit it, Vraki was pretty gifted in the art of making threats.
Almost made me hate to interrupt.
There’s very little in this world that can scare a mage. A person who can hurl boulders, conjure hurricanes, or make things explode with their mind doesn’t have a lot to be afraid of except the price they pay for doing so. And a person like Vraki doesn’t even have to fear that.
To that end, maybe there’s nothing I could do that could scare him.
But I like to think that, when he heard a screech pierce the smoke-filled sky and looked up to see a giant, angry bird charging toward him, me astride her with glistening sword in hand, he knew what was coming.
Congeniality, fearing no flame, blood, or magic, went rampaging toward him, eyes ablaze and beak open. He dropped Courageous, threw his hands out wide. His eyes glowed as the Lady’s song rose. Portals opened, a forest of thorny vines weaving itself in front of him, doubtlessly impenetrable to any weapon I had.
But that was where the bird came in.
I kicked Congeniality’s flanks and she responded, leaping into the air and coming down, talons-first, upon the wall. All five hundred pounds of feather and muscle crashed through the brambles in a spray of shards and thorns. I was treated to the spectacle of Vraki’s offended face before a portal opened behind him and he fell through it, vanishing.
Some part of me had hoped that Congeniality would have just disemboweled him, but another, more bitter part knew it would never be that easy. And it knew that Vraki hadn’t gone far.
And, sure enough, as I spurred Congeniality down the street, my ears were full of the Lady’s song. At the corner of my eye, I saw another portal open. I jerked her reins away, narrowly avoiding the great brambled spike that burst out.
“Cacophony!”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw him. From a shimmering hole in creation behind him, a beast crawled. An amalgamation of spindly limbs—some human, some not—attached to a crooked spine and headed by a face that looked like a snarling hound had begun swallowing a sobbing man feetfirst and stopped at his neck, lurched to his side. It bowed its head, one eye flitting about in horror, as Vraki ascended it and stood upon its bent spine, staring down at me through eyes alight with magic.