The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2), page 19
His jaw dropped. No. That’s impossible. We couldn’t have—
“Mathias, come in! Shooter across the square!”
Iggy had been muttering something in his helmet during the fight, but he hadn’t been able to make it out. This time, her strident voice launched him into action. He broke north to the nearest cover, the wall of the longhouse where the snipers had been. Against explosives, he didn’t know what kind of cover a building made of mud would be, but at least he wouldn’t be in sight.
It’s impossible. We can’t have lost someone. There hasn’t been a Petronaut killed since—
He slapped himself on the helmet, hard. There was no time to dwell on it. That shooter, whoever he was, had to be stopped. If he could pick off a Cavalier from across town with a single shot, then none of them were safe, even in retreat.
“Let’s get him, Iggy,” Mathias said under his breath. “Where is he?”
“North side, it looked like. Tell you more in a moment.”
As he looked up, Ironsides came barreling east towards the village square. He could just make out the tip of Iggy’s musket over the edge of the machine. She would plant herself up high and try to take out the shooter before he got off another round.
Sir Mathias exhaled three times, fast, his heart pounding in his chest. And then he ran past the far side of the long building and broke left, in the direction of the shooter. He and Iggy would come at the bastard from both sides. With any luck, they’d both be alive to meet in the middle.
*****
There was no time to celebrate. The girls watched the flying machine start rocketing their direction before the dust began to settle in the crater. Columbine and Ariell ducked out of view into the empty cooking house. A pot of water was still bubbling noisily over the wood stove. Ariell’s bloodless rabbit lay draped where she’d left it against the full wooden bowl, looking more like a rag doll than a meal in its long brown fur.
“Come on, come on!” Ariell said. Columbine shook herself and fumbled with the pouch. Her heart was beating as fast as the big motor on that flying machine out there. She forced a deep breath out and, as calmly as she could manage, pinched a red stone between her fingers. She carefully lowered it into the sling. Ariell flung the handle of the stonebow back until it clicked, and started for the door.
“Wait!”
“What?” she said, her scowling midling face contorted with a flurry of emotions; pride, disbelief, terror, remorse, worry. Columbine held her hands up to her sister to wait. A sudden premonition had hit her about the open doorway.
She scanned the room and spotted the ladder leading to the roof. There was a hatchway in the ceiling the last of the snipers had swung closed after their retreat all those long minutes ago. Columbine rushed over to the ladder and climbed as high as she could. There was a terrible stink wafting down from the roof. She held her breath and grabbed a long rolling pin hanging from the wall rack, along with the tongs and spatulas and scrapers. She looped one leg around the ladder, holding herself in place, and pushed the rolling pin upwards against the hatch with both hands. The unlocked hatch flipped up and out, landing with a thunk on the roof, and sent a fresh wave of the disgusting smell down the ladder at her. She dry heaved a little and scrambled down the ladder as fast as she could.
From far above, a musket ball came whizzing into the building. It burst through the wall behind the top of the ladder, right where she would have been standing had she climbed all the way up. She’d been right; the machine had been waiting to shoot her sister.
“Now, now, now!” she shrieked to Ariell, pointing towards the open door. Ariell ducked outside, raised the stonebow high, and sighted into the air.
“Burn me,” Iggy swore as she started to reload her musket. Then, with a rush of noise and light, the world ignited.
*****
The Petronauts stopped breathing when they saw the explosion hit Ironsides. A huge burst of orange and red flame bloomed out of the machine’s base as the shot hit it dead on. Not even such a powerful weapon could disintegrate Ironsides outright, but the blow still threw up a shower of molten metal and debris. Ironsides bucked forward wildly. Dame Orinoco watched as Iggy’s body was flung free from her machine, hurled end over end into the treetops where it disappeared from sight. The crippled Aerial vehicle, its powerful fan in pieces and its precarious balance upended, sank earthwards like the pile of stone it was, trailing gouts of burning ‘tum. The earth shook as it landed, just outside Two Forks’ northwestern gate.
“Sir Kelley,” Orinoco said, turning to the Recon ‘naut. Her throat was dry. Sir Kelley was simply staring, frozen in place with his truncheon at his side.
“Kelley!”
He shook himself back to sense. “We’ll get Iggy,” the Cavalier said “You get to Sir Mathias, and you both head into the forest. There’s no fighting this.”
He still looked at her, unable to form words. “Sir Kelley,” she asked clearly, “will you second a full retreat order?”
Very slowly, he nodded.
Dame Orinoco gestured the retreat to Dame Julie, who ran back towards the gate and the waiting Shock Trooper. Dame Orinoco sprinted for the stockade and cleared it in a great leap; out to the forest to recover Iggy’s body.
Sir Kelley stood in the dusty path. Three ‘nauts were down in as many minutes. And with Mathias pinned down north in this hateful village, alone with the shooter, his junior ‘naut was bound to be next.
“No more,” Kelley said to himself, his voice low and quiet. His black arms pumping, he ran deeper into Two Forks.
*****
Sir Mathias fought to keep his breathing under control. He felt like his panting must have been audible for ten meters in any direction, and the pounding of his heart for another ten. Any gun that could bring down Ironsides with a single shot would light him up so hard his house would burn down too, back in Delia.
“Good old Delia,” he mumbled to himself, unable to stop. “Where the worst thing a farmer can do is sell you rotten eggs.” Not gun down your friends, ruthlessly, irresistably, blowing them out of the sky or turning their bodies into dust. And for what? Why? What was wrong with this burning town, that the people here hated them so much? How could you fight that kind of hate?
Mathias pressed his back against the rounded house, trying to keep his mind from spinning. The shots had come from the other long house on the square, the one Iggy had bombed. He was two homes and a flower garden away from her murderer. He had a good position, and could easily find more cover as he advanced on the bastard, for whatever that was worth. With luck, he could get in his shot before the man even knew he was there. Surprise was the only thing he had going for him. This sniper was a better shot than him, with better reflexes and a much deadlier weapon. But even the coldest monster could be surprised—
“Meow?” the farm cat said, looking up at him with bewildered yellow eyes. The beast had appeared out of nowhere.
“Spheres!” Sir Mathias swore as he wheeled around, pushing it away with his foot.
*****
“Ariell!” Columbine gasped, pointing. They’d taken a moment to watch the big flying machine come crashing into the ground. The woman inside it had toppled out into the trees, her long hair streaming behind her as she fell limply through the branches; they’d seen that too. Columbine knew she should be proud to see these arrogant Delians disappearing one by one, but something made her a little queasy in her stomach along with it. Ariell had looked a little green in the face too. It must have been the smell seeping down from the roof.
But then they’d heard a man swearing, just up the path from the cooking house. As Columbine pointed towards the sound, they heard the muffled shuffling of big metal feet, maybe two houses away. Delian, Columbine mouthed to Ariell.
Ariell pointed urgently to the pouch. Columbine loaded another red pebble into the stonebow, more quickly than ever before. The tighter her nerves got, the more calmly her hands seemed to move. That was a blessing. She put her hands on her sister’s back as they crept towards the doorway.
A musket ball whizzed towards them, and the girls dropped down instantly. Columbine threw her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. The shot had been wild and wide; it hadn’t even hit the cooking house, let alone come close to the doorway. But Ariell’s trigger finger still jerked with surprise, and the arms of the stonebow shed their tension with a muffled snap. The red stone went flying, and a piece of Two Forks exploded somewhere between Pauma’s home and the smokehouse. Dirt spattered everywhere, and smoke rose up from a crater in the path.
“Damn, damn, damn!” Ariell spat, grabbing Columbine by the arm. They scrambled to re-load the weapon.
*****
Sir Mathias shielded his face with one big arm as the road next to him exploded. He was sprayed with dirt and pebbles and nearly lost his footing, even braced as he was with his back against the wall of the mud house. He looked out at the smoldering crater between his cover and the wooden shack across the path. None of these buildings were worth a damn as protection. If the shooter decided he didn’t care about leveling a few houses in the process, he could blast straight through to Mathias at any time.
He shook his wrist, loading another round. He didn’t have the time or the spare brainpower to think strategically right now. Instinct would have to do. He tensed his legs and leapt through the rising smoke across the path, landing just behind the wooden shack. Nothing blew him out of the air while he flew, so either the shooter hadn’t seen him, or that weapon of his took a decent time to re-load. Either way, good news.
He pressed his back against the wooden structure and smelled a faint whiff of smoked ham. In a flash, the unexpected aroma brought his hungry stomach to his attention; and before he knew it, conditions all over his body were reporting in, from the sweat on his palms to the ache in his leg to the itch between his shoulder blades to, above all else, the pounding in his heart. I’m human, his body was crying out below the surface of each mundane message. I don’t want to die.
Mathias took a deep breath and stamped out each flare-up furiously, like a hiker with a wayward campfire. The stakes were too high to lose focus now. Sir Mathias leaned out from behind the building and fired again.
*****
A shot lodged into the eaves of the cooking house. Columbine ignored it as she loaded the next round into the little cloth sling. As Ariell cocked back the lever, Columbine looked down the path towards the northwest gate. Somewhere across the street, the Petronaut was shooting at them, and his aim was getting better. Ariell needed to get a clear shot at him right away, before he could keep sneaking his way nearer and nearer. Columbine clenched her teeth together, hard. She made her decision.
Columbine stood up from behind her sister and started to run. She felt grasping fingertips graze the small of her back, but Ariell was too surprised to grab her.
“Columbine!” she heard her sister say, desperately, furiously, fearfully—everything all at once, just like Ariell always was. Columbine shook her head as she ran across the open path, passing a domed cottage on her left. Be mad later. For now, just get that Petronaut.
*****
Sir Mathias heard footsteps pounding the dirt, running for the northwest gate. Moving to flank him? Escaping? Heading out to the place where Iggy crashed? He wasn’t about to let the shooter do any of those things. He took two steps out from behind the smokehouse and leapt.
Sir Mathias landed in the middle of the four-way intersection, the village square behind him and the gate in front. Someone was running, all right, a small blur of movement that registered as he landed. He raised his gun-arm.
“Columbine!” Ariell screamed, leaping out of the doorway into the middle of the path. She pointed the stonebow at the jet-black Petronaut’s back.
A shot rang out, surprisingly quiet in the hot summer air.
Sir Mathias froze as he heard the shot from behind him. His mind was taking a moment to process what he was seeing. He looked over his shoulder.
Standing in the village square was Sir Kelley, his arm outstretched and his hand clenched in a black fist. A curl of smoke was rising from the gun barrel mounted on his wrist. Halfway between the two Petronauts, just outside the open doorway of a long mud-brick building, was their shooter.
The odd crossbow sank to her side as her arms dropped, one long-fingered hand clutching the handle tightly. Her face was pointed, ashen, dotted with the pimples that have plagued midlings since time immemorial. Her stringy hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her gray leggings and tan tunic were dusty; the clothes of someone who’d been climbing trees and scouring the forest, not too long ago.
And on the side of her chest, where her heart had been, was a slowly growing deep red stain.
Her eyes were looking past Mathias’ shoulder as she sank, first to her knees, then, at last, to the ground with a soft impact. There was a moan behind him, and Sir Mathias turned his head back around.
His eyes hadn’t been playing tricks, earlier. His runner was another girl, half the age of the shooter, with brown hair and big brown eyes, wide as an owl’s. Her features were sharp, too, but with the softness of childhood to take the edge off. The little girl was clutching a pouch tightly in both hands, her feet scuffing in the dirt as she looked at the body of her accomplice down the path. Then she looked up at Sir Mathias’ face in mute terror. He realized that he was still pointing his arm at her.
Very slowly, he lowered his hand. Eyes full of tears, face still contorted in fear, the girl turned tail and ran for the gate as fast as her legs could carry her.
With that, the town was empty.
Sir Mathias flicked his visor up, sucking in the unfiltered air. There was a sickly smell drifting off the long building as he turned around. Sir Kelley was still standing there, his arm still fully extended. They both looked at the thin body splayed out in the path as a breeze washed over them with the scent of something rotten.
“A girl,” Sir Mathias said, unable to stop himself from voicing it. “A pair of kids.”
Kelley didn’t look at him. Stiffly and slowly, Sir Kelley approached the body. He bent down and picked up the strange crossbow, its cloth sling loaded with a small red bead. He examined the weapon for a moment. Then he looked at the girl’s face. He stayed crouched there for a long time, looking at her through his impassive black helmet. The seconds ticked by.
Sir Mathias took a step forward, tentatively. “Kelley?”
The smaller man made no sign of having heard him. Mathias took another step closer, raising his hand to touch Kelley’s shoulder. But the senior ‘naut was already up on his feet, back straight, shoulders squared.
“Retreat and regroup,” Kelley said, his voice raspy.
He started running towards the southern gate, faster than necessary, as if something in town was still here to chase them. As he watched his partner go, Sir Mathias felt a breath of summer wind limp through the empty village of Two Forks, whistling through the open hatches and broken windows, and he was just as glad to run.
Part Two
The Path to the Master
“I spread my wings to meet you
Though I know not who you are.”
Birth of the Marsh Crane, Duronico, 778
Chapter One
The Road Ahead
The pigeon loved to fly.
It tolerated the cage, because there was food. It tolerated the cuff on its leg, because the weight was barely noticeable. And it tolerated the squeezing hands around its thigh, now, as the scrap of paper was rolled and stuffed into its message case. But it loved to fly.
And so, in a way, it loved the squeezing hands and crinkling paper too, because it knew what they meant. Soon, the cage would be opened, the clear skies would beckon, and the pigeon would be flying again.
And the only thing the pigeon loved more than flying was flying home. Home, where the trees were green and shady and the stone walls stayed cool in the summer sun. Home, where gentle hands would take out the piece of paper and let the pigeon fly free, up to the roosts in the tall, tall tower. Home, where other pigeons would listen to its tales of adventure and coo in awe, knowing full well that it was making up the stories on the spot. None of them would remember the stories the next sun-up anyway. That was all right, because they were home again. At least, until the next piece of paper.
Gloved hands grasped the pigeon’s breast and lifted it high. It pecked them, for lack of anything better to do, as the hands brought it closer and closer to the blessed window. Panes of glass in the ceiling let sunlight come beaming down into the pigeon’s eyes. The skies were glorious.
Home, the pigeon thought joyfully as the window was flung open. It stretched out its wings.
“We have a lot of boxes,” Lundin remarked.
Dionne grinned at him. “You’re important now, senior tech,” she said. “That entitles you to a little luggage.”
‘A little luggage’ didn’t seem quite right for two flatbed carts stacked three crates high, securely immobilized under a corset of straps. And that was just the workshop gear. It didn’t account for their multiple trunks of luggage-luggage, personal stuff, affixed to the rear of the boxy carriage that would take the mechanized wizardry team on to Fort Campos. It seemed like a colossal amount of material to transport.
Or, at least, it had, before he’d caught his first glimpse of the Army resupply convoy their three little wagons would be tagging along with for the ride east. Lundin coughed as a bit of street dust drifted into his throat. On a military scale, two flatbeds and a few trunks really is a little luggage
