The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2), page 39
She swung away from the tree, coiling her legs up to her chest, and just as her swing started carrying her back, she slammed both boots into the dead trunk with a kick like a horse. Dame Miri let go of her branch and sailed backwards, far too fast to be safe. With a weepy creaking sound, her tree broke in half.
She landed in the branches behind her, bruising her shoulder on the second tree as she scrabbled for handholds. Another shot flew through the night as the top half of the spindly tree came crashing down towards the hostile. It wouldn’t be enough to crush the ‘naut, but it was a mighty nice distraction. Dame Miri swung herself down to the ground as fast as she could, gasping as the last drop shuddered through her leg bones, all the way from her feet to her hips. The ranine coils were definitely shot. Guess I’ll have to take a new pair from this joker, she thought grimly, drawing her knife. She raced towards the splintered tree, her feet flying against the leafy ground.
There was a springing sound on the far side of the tree, and Dame Miri tucked and rolled as the ‘naut leapt past her, thudding heavily to the ground not two meters away. She sprang up onto her feet and hesitated, unable to see anything in the dark. Then she noticed a glint of moonlight on the black armor just in time to bend away from a metal fist.
She closed the distance, got a hand on the metal pauldron, and tried to loop a leg behind the big figure’s knee in a takedown, praying for momentum. But the big ‘naut spun with her, getting one hand on her tricep and one on her hip, and tossed her to the dirt. She rolled from her shoulder to her back, and heard the ‘naut charging after her. She did a backwards somersault onto her feet, and spun just in time for the ‘naut to crash into her. Dame Miri felt the knuckles pressed to her belly rotate as the next round was chambered in. She raised the hooked curve of her knife to the ‘naut’s throat, searching for the seam she knew was there—
The moonlight was clear, white and warm as it broke through the trees.
“What?” Dame Miri and Sir Mathias said simultaneously.
“You smell terrible,” Samanthi crowed.
“You should have smelled the other guy,” Dame Miri said, hugging her back. She gasped, looking over the tech’s shoulder at the array of tents in the Delian encampment.
“Spheres, it’s an army! How many of you chumps did it take to find this place?”
“Just over a hundred with the prisoners,” Sir Mathias said absently, fiddling with the golden-eyed mask. “And, uh, we didn’t so much find it as convince the prisoners to bring us here.”
“And by we, he means me,” Sir Kelley said, smiling tightly.
Dame Miri gently pulled out of the hug with Samanthi and inclined her head politely to Kelley. He shook his head slowly. “The Feastday Hero herself! For a Parade ‘naut, Dame Miri, you sure find yourself in interesting places.”
She brushed her grimy black bangs out of her eyes and looked confused. She jerked her thumb towards the stony castle, just visible in the valley behind them.
“What do you mean? I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m doing my cabaret act in there in fifteen minutes, so… I mean,” she paused, head tilted to the side, and pressed her fingers against Kelley’s arm. “You can help, if you want. Share the stage?”
“Yeah, I’ll juggle scarves.”
“How can we make that happen?” Samanthi whispered to Mathias, her eyes widening.
“There isn’t enough liquor in the world. Now can someone please tell me,” Sir Kelley said, “why in the black flames you are here?”
“To save my team,” Dame Miri said, her face growing serious.
Kelley frowned. The castle beyond them was at the center of a valley, not on any of the charts they had of this poorly mapped part of the Tarmic. Thick stone walls formed a rectangle around the keep, clearly built in the days before artillery. That kind of quarry work was far too labor-intensive for walls any cannon could blast into rubble. The building itself had the footprint of a plus sign with the northeast corner filled in, giving it a lopsided feel. A cylindrical spire rose up on the fat side of the castle, topped with a cone of dark black shingles. It had to be five stories tall at the peak of the spire, and probably had a few dozen rooms spread out across its wide floors.
One of their musketeers had been a university student before doing her Service, and put the castle’s age at two hundred to two hundred fifty years. It was a relic from the height of the Warlord years. From the buttressing, and the panes of expensive glass on the western side, it was even possible it was an old Haberstorm fortress. But those elements weren’t exclusive to castles built by the top dynasty; and not even Sir Kelley was ready to believe the Golden Caravan had the gall to go squatting in a Haberstorm ancestral home while they preached the downfall of Delia.
The sight of the place raised plenty of questions, but the one chief on their minds—how many soldiers were inside—was beyond anybody’s guess.
“Do you mean to tell me,” Kelley said, minutes later, “that the Golden Caravan launched an attack on Fort Campos for the express purpose of kidnapping Horace Lundin?”
“Yes.”
“Horace Lundin?”
“To be fair,” Dame Miri said, raising her spoon as a point of order. She set the stew bowl on her lap and swallowed. “They wanted to kidnap all four of us. I got away because I’m too squiggly,” she elaborated to the other ‘nauts. Zig turned the color of his hair and stared into their campfire.
The Delian encampment was back in the trees, on the far side of a ridge from the castle. They kept their fires low-burning, hoping not to give their position away with stray wisps of smoke.
“Why take that risk for a bunch of Civics?” Dame Gaulda said, chewing on a hunk of bread.
“It may not be as crazy as it sounds,” Samanthi said, reaching out for the mask. They’d draped a jacket over the thing so they wouldn’t have to look at its golden eyes, glaring up into the night. She pulled it out and flipped it over, running her thumbs along the edges. “I’ve gone over this thing the best I can, and I didn’t find any seams or machinery. Did you, Zig?”
“Uh, no. Nothing.”
“And yet, bright glowing lenses that never burn out, that you can see through without being blinded while you’re wearing it?” She tapped a fingernail against the luminous crystal lenses, firmly wedged in place in the eye sockets. “And even more amazingly, the projected image of a square-jawed brawler that shows up in your mind when you wear the thing, and leads you right here?” She dropped it on her lap and shrugged. “It’s got to be magic.”
“But magic only works on people, not things. Right?” Sir Mathias said.
“Hey, when it comes to magic, I mostly know how much I don’t know.” She scratched her shoulder under the dark brown strap of her overalls. “But I look at this, and I can’t imagine how you’d possibly build it. Which says to me—”
“It’s magic,” Dame Julie finished. “Their gear is magical. And so this wizardry machine your team made… it’s something that would help the Golden Caravan?”
“Well, it lets you cast spells quicker, easier, with a one hundred percent success rate,” Dame Miri said, finishing her stew. “And all without dealing with a human wizard.”
The circle of ‘nauts took that in as the embers crackled. “Did you want some bread?” Dame Gaulda said into the silence, tearing off a hunk of the white loaf.
“Sure, thanks.”
The Shock Trooper looked over at Dame Miri appraisingly. “You came all this way out here, alone, to save your squad.”
Dame Miri held the bread in her hands, sifting through a selection of jokes or self-deprecating quips in her head. She took a deep breath and nodded instead. “I did.”
Gaulda tapped her fingers against her tin coffee mug. “Civics with critical information in enemy hands? Seems to me extraction ought to be the new objective.”
“Does it,” Sir Kelley said flatly. Shadows were draped across his pockmarked face. “I understood our orders were to gather information and engage the enemy only if we could do so advantageously.”
“A new situation needs a new assessment,” Dame Orinico said. “The Golden Caravan has had—what—more than two days with the Civics, already?” she frowned as Miri nodded confirmation. “The longer questioning goes on, who knows what information they’ll obtain?”
“Who knows if the Civics are even still alive?”
“Sir Kelley,” Mathias said dubiously, scratching his shoulder, “would the Caravan really go to all the trouble of kidnapping them just to execute them so fast?”
“If they resisted interrogation well enough.”
Samanthi couldn’t stifle a nervous snort. “Come on, Sir, this is Lundin we’re talking about.”
“I’m fully aware, senior tech, that this is Lundin we’re talking about!” he raged.
Kelley flew to his feet and turned his back on the fire, stalking away into the dark. The other ‘nauts exchanged looks over the red embers. Dame Orinoco’s mouth tightened in disapproval.
“One moment,” Sir Mathias said, brushing the crumbs off his hands. He heard the whispers behind him as he followed the senior ‘naut through the trees. Kelley had scaled a few dozen meters up the ridge, to a vista with a partial view of the brooding castle below. Moonlight gleamed off the arched window on the western face of the spire.
Mathias stopped a few steps away, giving the ‘naut his space.
“Of all the people,” Kelley said bitterly after a long silence. He didn’t turn around. “In a million-person city, that he’s the Delian they decide to kidnap.”
“Because he’s a valuable target,” he replied. “You heard Sam. If she’s right about how the Golden Caravan works, he could be a real asset for them.”
“Oh, he’s an asset all right.” His emphasis said it all.
“Look, Sir Kelley.” Mathias fought the temptation to raise his voice. “If you’ve got a case to make, you’re not doing any good up here. Come back down and say your piece, or Dame Orinoco’s going to give orders without you.”
“Maybe she should.”
Sir Mathias blinked. Kelley turned around, his mouth twisted into something between rage and grief. “I can’t command this mission.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I.” He tried to get a hold of himself. “When Xiaoden and Ignatia went down, I told myself ‘no more.’ I wouldn’t see another person in this command fall, no matter how much it demanded of me.”
“Sir, you can’t keep us all safe.”
“Maybe not. But I promised that I’d push myself as far as I could, so if anything did happen, I could try to sleep at night knowing I didn’t hold back.
“But for Horace Lundin?” He exhaled sharply through his teeth. Kelley’s green eyes searched the ground as he tried to put words to what was going through his head.
Sir Mathias stepped into the den of snakes as gently as he could. “He’s one of us, Sir. I know he treated you badly. He made a huge mistake. But he’s a Petronaut in enemy hands…”
“I know.”
“And he’s got information they—”
“I know, I know, Mathias,” he said, with surprisingly little acid in his voice. His eyes unfocused as he sank into thought.
“We have to try a rescue,” he murmured.
“And there are two other Petronauts with him, right? Think about saving them, instead.”
“You know what it is?” Kelley said. Sir Mathias dropped his grin at the expression on Kelley’s face as the lean man looked up at him.
“If it had been Lundin, instead of you? I wouldn’t have shot the girl.”
Sir Mathias flicked his eyes to the ground, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. He saw the girl’s body crumple to the dirty ground; heard the clatter of her crossbow against the path; smelled the smoke rising from Kelley’s gun barrel.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“I think I do,” Kelley whispered, a helpless edge to his voice. “I don’t know how far I can push myself to save Horace Lundin’s life. And if I’m not willing to push myself to the edge for this mission, that means I’m putting every other ‘naut in danger; every single soldier in each of those platoons—”
“You’re not the only one who’s going out there,” Mathias said, raising his hands. “You can’t put the safety of everyone on the battlefield on your shoulders.”
“But it is. I’m the commander. Ask Orinoco, she knows how it feels.”
“I bet she know that it goes both ways.” He put a hand on Sir Kelley’s shoulder impulsively. “While you’re out there fighting to keep each of us safe, you’ve got a hundred comrades looking out for you in a hundred different ways. When we win, we all win. And when we lose, we pick each other up and we keep going on. That’s what being a team means.
“And I know that when everything’s on the line, you’ll know who’s on your team. And you’ll fight for them as hard as you would for anyone else.”
Kelley looked up at him, his face inscrutable. He looked down at the hand on his shoulder. Sir Mathias withdrew his hand, scratching his head beneath the mass of oily brown curls. “That’s what I think,” he said to fill the space.
“Thank you for your opinion, junior ‘naut,” Sir Kelley said, with customary venom.
Mathias stifled a sigh and bowed his head in salute. He froze. Kelley’s ungloved hand was open at his waist, fingers pointing towards his partner. Very slowly, Sir Mathias reached out and accepted the handshake, very gingerly, so as not to spook the smaller ‘naut. Kelley’s skin was cold—how can you be cold in the middle of summer?—but his grip was firm, and there was the barest hint of a smile in his green eyes.
“Pardon me, Sirs…”
They looked up to see Platoon Commander Tamore, dipping his head in a bow. “News of the castle,” he said.
“Something to report, Commander Tamore?” Dame Orinoco said, lowering her salute and looking down at the much shorter man. Mathias poured himself another mug of coffee and retook his seat next to Samanthi by the fire. She raised an eyebrow at him, inclining her head towards Kelley, looking very formal by the Platoon Commander’s side. Mathias gave her an over-enthusiastic thumbs-up and she rolled her eyes, bumping her knee against his scoldingly.
“Indeed there is,” Tamore said, running a hand through his thin black hair. The chubby-cheeked officer smiled winningly across the campfire. “But may I first say what a pleasure it is to have the Feastday Hero herself, here in our midst, after braving who knows what dangers!”
“Well, I do,” Dame Miri deadpanned, “But thank you.” She gave him a gracious wink and he bowed again, glowing with pleasure.
Tamore cleared his throat. “A significant party of soldiers have vacated the castle.”
“Vacated…!” Sir Kelley said. All the ‘nauts started out of their seats. “They’ve opened the gates? Which way are they coming?” It would take long minutes to get each of them into their armor, and if the enemy was on the move they wouldn’t have anywhere close to that.
“Not through the gates, Sir Kelley. Through a tunnel.” Tamore laced his fingers behind their back. “Scouts heard the sound of tracked vehicles moving due north of the keep. As far as they could discern from their vantage point, there is a trapdoor hidden in the forest floor, large enough to admit vehicles the size of our commandeered conveyance.” He inclined his head towards the captured Caravan nearby.
“A trapdoor?” Samanthi said. “For this?
“Is that possible?” Dame Orinoco said, crossing her arms over her chest. “They actually saw the vehicles use these trapdoors?”
“That is the report, yes. We conjecture that there’s a tunnel connecting the castle to this hatch in the woods. Where else would it have come from?” he posed mildly.
“How many vehicles did they see?”
“Before returning to make their report? Just one, escorted by at least a platoon of soldiers.”
“And where were they heading?”
“North.”
Kelley and Orinoco looked at each other. “Commander,” she said, “Call your scouts up again. We’re suiting up and going with them.”
“You thinking it too?” Sir Kelley asked, draining the last of his coffee and tossing the dregs into the fire with a hiss.
“We need to keep eyes on how much traffic goes through that tunnel. If enough of their forces are deploying into the woods, that might mean we have a shot at storming the castle.”
“And saving those techs,” Dame Miri said, sighing with relief.
“I should say,” Tamore offered, raising a hand, “that at present we don’t have any idea how many soldiers and vehicles remain inside the castle compound. The deployment of one platoon may not make a dent in their overall strength, vis-à-vis our small force. Besides, we don’t have any siege equipment.”
“On the contrary, Commander,” Kelley said, with a lopsided grin. His gesture took in the seven ‘nauts seated around the brick-red fire. “Our siege equipment is sitting right here. Zig! Ms. Elena! Prep the suits, on the double.”
Samanthi rubbed her eyelids with her thumbs. Suiting up the whole company of ‘nauts was an unexpected chore at the end of a long day. She stifled a yawn, looking down at Dame Miri. “Sorry our spare equipment isn’t better stocked,” she said.
“No complaints here.” Miri wiggled her toes inside the seven-leaguers; mercifully, a good fit this time. “I’m better off than I’ve been for days.”
The tech propped up her feet on the corner of the boxy Communicator. It was wound up and ready to receive, its little glass display glowing purple with a full charge. If Kelley or Mathias had anything to report on the movements outside the castle, she could relay the message to the platoons nearby.
Dame Miri stood up, testing out the stride of the new boots. She tromped a few steps up the hill, away from the firelight. Samanthi was just about to close her eyes when she heard the ‘naut’s gentle voice.
