The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2), page 28
“Do what you want, sir,” Martext shouted back. “Don’t feel like you have to explain yourself to me.” And with that, he grabbed the metal press with both hands and hoisted, carrying the machine to its insulated case.
Lundin clamped his mouth shut. Something was definitely wrong with the tall, typically unflappable tech, but he’d already wasted enough time fretting about it. He needed to get out there and find Willl before something terrible happened to him, and all his L’s.
Just then, the front door came swinging open. The techs froze, and Dame Miri raised her pistol. She lowered it just as quickly. “Flames, Willl, watch yourself,” she grumbled, clapping the lanky blond on the shoulder. He stared at her with his mouth open, clearly derailed from whatever he’d been about to say.
“Are you all right? Where’ve you been?” Lundin said, making a beeline for him.
“Okay,” Willl with three L’s got out after a moment. “We gotta go.”
“Go? Go where?” Elia stood off the stool, her breath coming more quickly.
“I was with the sergeant; you know, learning?” he gestured vaguely to the central fort. “Then the bombs started. Farmingham saw me on his way somewhere and told me to get the team.”
“Do they want us inside the fort?”
“No, uh. ‘Too close to the field of fire,’” he quoted carefully. He pointed out past the back door, his bangs swaying back and forth. “Southeast tower has a basement. Secure. Far away from the shells. He said grab the little stuff and go.”
“Little stuff? Like, the journals?”
Willl with three L’s shrugged. Lundin scratched his shoulder where the suspenders pressed against his skin, thinking hard. It was hard to concentrate on anything, now that the fort’s thunderous guns had found a rhythm.
“Journals. Translations. Ronk’s notes. Archimedia’s scrolls,” he yelled, holding up a finger for each item. “If you can carry it and still run, grab it now.”
Dame Miri holstered her gun in her belt and joined them as they scoured the worktables for papers. Martext loaded up a small box with their Old Harutian workbooks, and Elia found a scroll case; but, otherwise, they just shoved papers into their arms and pockets. Dame Miri took the slim leather journal with the draft text for Greatsight and their next planned spells, and slipped it into her inside jacket pocket. Willl with three L’s tapped Lundin on the shoulder as he was folding up a set of Ronk’s parchments. “Colonel Farmingham said, like, fast,” he reported hesitantly.
“Yes, Willl, we’re going! Back door, everyone!”
Out in the open air, the noise was astonishing each time Campos’ guns blasted out. Lundin fought the urge to look over his shoulder as they dog-trotted towards the southeastern bastion. There wouldn’t be much to see through the smoke, and even with watching where he was going, he was having enough trouble staying upright in these burning thin-soled slippers. He adjusted his arms around the package of papers. Maybe it was the ringing in his ears from the big cannons, but it seemed like he could hardly hear the whistling of the enemy mortars anymore. Against his better judgment, he risked a look to the side. There was a mass of Delian musketeers and a few armored knights charging through the main gate. If their guys were charging out into the forest, that had to mean that Colonel Yough felt like the bad guys had been adequately softened up. As if in counter-argument, another mortar shell screamed out of the woods and burst high above the tower, sending shards of metal raining down onto the masonry. With no unprotected bodies around, though, a bomb like that was only so much smoke and noise.
Lundin turned back around, his mind swirling as they ran. He was revising his earlier ideas about the smart planning of their attackers. What’s the point of picking a fight with Campos if you know your firepower’s only going to scratch the paint? It seemed like an awful lot of risk to maim a few soldiers patrolling the walls. They had to be missing something. A nasty ambush once the Army was outside the gate, maybe? Or was the attack more about spreading fear than accomplishing anything substantial? You figure it out, Colonel Yough. I just want a nice sturdy roof over my team’s heads again.
There was no one visible in the southeast corner, though he knew the towers were never empty. The door to the bastion was about thirty meters away, with the rest of the tower rising high above ground level; and descending into a nice safe basement as well, apparently, if Willl with three L’s was remembering Farmingham’s message right. To their left as they ran was a secondary gate through the fortress walls, barely big enough for a soldier on horseback to fit through. The pair of portcullises would open for small-scale patrols, Lundin supposed, or clandestine rendezvous. A field agent who wasn’t supposed to make a grand entrance could be admitted here. At any rate, the door that mattered was the one straight ahead.
Dame Miri was leading the squad to the bastion, her arms full of books. But long before reaching the door, she slowed to a halt. “Go, Miri, go!” Lundin said, frowning, his chest starting to burn from all the excitement and exertion.
She turned, letting the books fall from her arms. “Someone’s outside!” she said, reaching for her pistol with her bandaged hands. Lundin opened his mouth again, and then the explosions threw him to the ground.
He skidded hard on his bare arm, clutching the papers instinctively to his chest. His left ear didn’t seem to be working; the ongoing rumble of the cannons was more something he felt in his ribs now, rather than hearing in his head. Lundin shook himself and forced himself up as quickly as he could, his feet feeling a little unsteady.
The tiny side gate had been blown open. Its inner portcullis was a tangle of frayed metal edges, frozen in the moment of explosion. And barreling through the open gate was—Spheres, what is it? At first it looked like an animated statue, it was so massive and stiff-jointed. The huge figure had a helmet that made his veins freeze; a long, featureless representation of a wolf’s head, or one of those scavenging dogs from the desert lands. Its eyes glowed gold. As the statue raised its metal arms, he could hear the distinctive whine of straining gears.
A Petronaut, he thought, letting the papers drop.
Lundin wished frantically for a weapon as he scanned the scene. Dame Miri was back on her feet; Elia was crouched over Martext, who seemed to be in trouble; and Willl—
Something dark swung over his head from behind. He bent over double to avoid it, wincing as the edge of a rough fabric sack caught against his forehead, scratching his skin. There was a whiff of something alchemical inside the sack that made his eyes water. Instinctively, Lundin jabbed backwards with his elbow and yelped with pain as his funny bone connected with his attacker’s ribs. He wheeled around and saw Willl with three L’s, hefting a black hood in his hands.
The lanky blond was grimacing as he pressed his hand to his ribs. But there wasn’t any anger in his eyes, or burning vengeance, or sudden madness. He just looked patient.
“Hold still, sir,” he said, barely audible above the chaos through Lundin’s one good ear. Willl with three L’s lunged forward again, the dark folds of the sack gaping like a mouth.
Lundin crouched down in a barely remembered martial stance and punched him in the stomach. It must not have been a very good punch, because all Willl with three L’s did was grunt and stumble on top of him, sending him sprawling onto his back. He kicked out a few times before the tech pushed his leg aside and straddled his waist. “What,” Lundin finally managed as he squirmed and beat wildly on the other man’s arm with one closed fist. One word was about as close as he could come to getting a handle on the rapidly changing situation. It was amazing how much pain was radiating out of his elbow, his ankles, and now his knuckles too. No wonder people invented weapons; every time I bash him, I hurt myself more than he gets hurt.
Willl with three L’s fought past his flailing arms and shoved the black hood into his face. Lundin desperately held his breath as the stinking fabric scoured his cheek and lips. His fingers brushed against something metal near his waist. His right suspender had come unclipped, and the little metal mouth with its tiny teeth was yawning open. As Willl with three L’s struggled with both hands to slip the hood over his head, Lundin pinched the clasp between his fingers and jabbed upwards, blindly, as hard as he could. The other man made a noise like a nauseous stork as Lundin clawed him in the adam’s apple.
He felt the pressure on his face and belly let up as Willl with three L’s recoiled. With a wild yell that made his voice crack, Lundin flung himself forward and planted his forehead into Willl’s teeth. The tech’s upper jaw clamped down involuntarily, chomping down on Lundin’s scalp in an extremely unpleasant way. Willl with three L’s fell backwards with one hand to his throat and the other clutching the black hood at his side.
Lundin’s eyes were dripping with tears, between the dizzying fumes and the teeth marks in his skull. He pressed a finger to the indentations on his head, kneeling on the ground in his good pants, and tried to understand what was happening. “Spheres,” he said, his voice sounding strange in his ears. The wolf-headed Petronaut was holding Elia in its metal arms. She banged a fist against its colossal shoulder in slow-motion before going limp, courtesy of the black hood over her head. Martext was lying on his side at the ‘naut’s feet, a hood on his head too. And Dame Miri—
He blinked. There were two other Petronauts inside the fort now, the size of normal people, in featureless oval masks with golden eyes. Where did they come from? They were both wearing that padded armor poor Miri had had to deal with back on the feastday, with strange packs slung over their shoulders. Dame Miri swung both arms in a pile driver and bashed one of them across the face. Lundin winced in sympathy for her bandaged hands as the ‘naut staggered, just a little. That blow had definitely hurt Delia’s Feastday Hero more than it had hurt the bad guy. Miri’s gun was nowhere to be seen, but, in better news, he saw two black hoods discarded on the ground. As the ‘naut she’d just hit rolled away from a kick to the face and reached for one of the hoods, the other masked bastard wrapped its arms around Dame Miri’s waist, pinning one of her arms to her side. As she tried to elbow the attacker in the head, there was an outpouring of sparks and the pair of them lifted off the ground.
“No,” Lundin said, fighting to his feet. Delia was the only place in the world that had gotten thrust packs to work. It wasn’t possible that these people had them too. None of this was possible. They were supposed to be at dinner. He hadn’t picked out a shirt.
Dame Miri and the Petronaut landed on the battlements just outside the southeastern bastion. A pair of Delian soldiers came running out of the tower, one with a musket and one with a pike. They shouted at the Petronaut as Miri struggled in its arms, and angled for a clean shot. Lundin watched, feeling stupid and helpless, as the massive wolf-faced ‘naut on the ground raised one arm up towards the bastion and squeezed its fist. The soldiers vanished from view as another piece of Fort Campos exploded into smoke and pebbles. Lundin wanted to shout, but his tongue was thick in his mouth.
Up on the wall, the masked Petronaut turned to shield its head from the flying debris. While the ‘naut was distracted, Dame Miri reached down with her free hand to grab its glove at her waist. She yanked at something Lundin couldn’t see, and the thrust pack flared up again, much to the ‘naut’s surprise. They lifted straight up for a brief moment before curling backwards, away from the wall and out towards the treetops. Dame Miri, he thought as they disappeared from view, terrifyingly fast, with only a trail of black exhaust floating upward to mark their passage.
Lundin’s eyes drifted back to ground level. The huge wolf-faced ‘naut and the smaller one with golden eyes were both looking at him, now. The smaller one had a black hood in its hands.
He looked at Willl with three L’s, who was splayed out in a tangle of limbs, spitting into the grass. The tech looked up at him, his gums bloody and his stupid blond bangs soaked with sweat. Lundin blinked, and it seemed to take forever for his eyes to open again, the way Colonel Yough blinked. An alchemical haze was taking over his vision. “Willl,” he said, not sure if his voice was carrying or not. “How could you do this?”
Willl with three L’s shrugged, his eyes looking big and sad through his trapezoidal glasses. “You don’t know me very well,” he said simply.
Then the Petronaut slipped the hood over his head, and everything went black.
Chapter Ten
Captives
“Agh.”
That was all Lundin could manage as his eyes got their first glimpse of light again. He squeezed them closed, pressing his fingers against his eyelids. He took in a deep breath and coughed. The hood had been removed, but his face was still damp from the poison-soaked fabric. The stench on his skin nearly made him pass out again. He smeared his hands against his face and wiped them on his pants, trying to get the last bits of moisture away from his nose.
He opened his eyes a crack again. Trees. Bushes. Soft, loamy ground below him. He was in the Tarmic Woods. But where? How far from Campos? The sun was gone, leaving the far-off fuzzy moons to provide as much light as they deigned to. But there was no way to know if they were in the dead of night now, or just half-an-hour past sundown. How far could he have traveled; and, for that matter, how had he gotten—
“Up.”
A metal hand grabbed him under the armpit and lifted him to his feet. He staggered, his head whirling like he was on the least fun drunken bender in history. Lundin shied away from the golden-eyed wolf looming over his shoulder. The hand on his arm tightened painfully. The eyes next to him were very bright.
“Who are you?” Lundin croaked.
The ‘naut didn’t say anything else as it spun him around. Lundin suddenly realized how much pain he was in. His back and shoulders were throbbing from what felt like a thousand different blows, and his chest was scraped and raw. He looked down at himself and saw a criss-crossed pattern smoldering red against his neck and sternum, where the undershirt’s neckline had left his skin exposed. What in the world…? Then he caught a glimpse of the huge ‘naut’s back. Attached at the pauldrons and the hips was a sort of black webbing, hanging loosely like a bunched-up net. The webbing was arrayed in a series of X’s; the same criss-crossed pattern that was rubbed raw into his skin. You carried me here, Lundin realized, looking up at the armored face. How far can you possibly have taken me?
His heart skipped a beat as he caught sight of a bit of good news. “Elia,” he cried out, his voice pathetically thin. There she was in the shadows, shoeless, her yellow dress rumpled and torn. But the tech was on her feet, however woozily, as a masked female figure in reddish leathers led her by the arm. And there was Martext, too, with a bandage around his hip, looking a little ashen. One of the thrust-pack Petronauts was helping him hobble towards their mutual destination.
Lundin took in the vehicle as best he could, still blinking and teary-eyed. It was a boxy, snub-nosed thing bigger than a carriage, maybe four meters long, and plated on all sides with a dingy golden metal. But instead of carriage wheels, it had great thick treads, their plates wrapped around a dazzling array of gears. He’d never seen a treaded vehicle personally, but the Hauler squad swore by them for getting cargo over rough terrain. Tonight, I guess we’re the cargo.
“Horace,” Elia said, swinging towards him. “Thank Spheres. Martext; he...” She touched her stomach at the same place where Martext was bandaged, unable to say anything more. Her head lolled down, her tangled hair spilling past her shoulders as the woman dragged her to the vehicle.
“You can’t do this,” Lundin said, pulling against his captor’s arm. The woman had opened up a door and stuffed Elia inside the vehicle, out of sight. “You can’t just take people out of the fort. Colonel Yough will find us.”
The ‘naut just held him, silently, as Martext was tossed into the cargo cart. As the wolf-headed ‘naut led him to the door, Lundin caught a glimpse of Willl with three L’s standing at a distance, his arms crossed over his chest. His trapezoidal glasses were askew and his lip was swollen. He was also decked out in chunky metal-plated boots that had to be seven-leaguers; a pair Lundin had never seen before. A pair Willl Wythernsson’s friends must have brought especially for him.
Lundin kept his eyes locked on the blond man’s face for as long as he could, looking for any hint of apology, or explanation, or ill-feeling. But Willl with three L’s just stood there, oddly resigned, as the huge ‘naut shoved Lundin into the golden vehicle and slammed the door.
It was black inside. A twelve-by-twelve centimeter grating in the ceiling let in a thin, fickle column of moonlight. There was nothing inside the dark cube except for the three of them; no boxes, or benches, or features of any kind. Elia was slumped in a corner, mumbling something. Martext was curled up on the floor, breathing shallowly. Lundin stayed hunched over on his feet and scanned the walls. They were blank, except for the barely visible outlines of the two square doors through which they’d been tossed. Tiny lines of ghostly light crept in from the woods and drew a box around each door.
As he traced a finger along the seam, the door panel shifted and pinched the fleshy pad of his fingerprint. Lundin grimaced and clutched his finger with his other hand as there was a loud clattering from outside, about halfway up the height of the door. The metallic banging was followed by a clean, clicking sound. The same sort of noises repeated on Elia’s side of the box a moment later. Locked in, he thought. Lundin pushed against the center of the door panel, and it barely budged before catching against something unyielding. Sure enough, this was a cage.
“—due east, before they fell,” came a voice from outside. Lundin pressed his ear against the door gently, trying not to rattle the lock again. “I’ll scout for her; unless you need help with these ones?”
The next voice chuckled, more in acknowledgment that a joke had been offered than out of genuine good humor. The ‘nauts. It was the same deep voice he’d heard from the wolf-headed one. “Bring the Delian back too, when you find her.”
