The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2), page 42
“Master, I was instructed to escort you to the northern tunnel—”
“A very reasonable order, yeoman,” Torvald said, replacing the telescope calmly on its stand, “seeing as the Delian Army has breached our gates.”
The soldier’s eyes went wide, shooting past him to the window as he went on. “Give your commander my compliments. I am, however, countermanding the order.
“Escort Master Iimar to the tunnel instead, and see him safely out of the keep this instant, with the same honor guard you would deploy for me.”
“Master—!”
“There are a great many things riding on you, my friend,” Torvald said, placing his hand on Iimar’s silken sleeve. “I can’t risk that you’re taken or killed. Spheres move you swiftly.”
“But, Master Torvald—”
“What will you do?” Iimar said, shaking his head.
“Stay.”
“But.” Things were moving far too quickly for the wizard. “You can’t stay! There’s much more riding on you than on me! You’re the King!”
“Not yet,” he said with a smile. “My path to the Throne is just beginning.
“Look out that window, wizard! Not twenty-four hours after I summon Svargath’s armies! Not a day after Dame Hanah deploys, dwindling our defences! The moment my plans fly into motion, my enemies appear at my door.”
“Ill fortune,” Iimar the Enchanter whispered.
“No,” Torvald shook his head, his face shining. “Providence. The glowing, golden light of Providence itself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I will stay, my friend. I will be safe. Find Dame Hanah and tell her what I’ve done.”
“But, Master—!”
The Haberstorm stood behind his desk. “My path begins here,” he declared. “And yours will take you down those stairs and north to safety. Now.”
There was no arguing with those ice-blue eyes. Iimar stopped in the doorway, looking back at the golden-haired man. “We will meet again,” he said, as much a prayer as anything else.
Torvald was smiling as they shut the door.
“Can one of you help me with these?” Lundin said as the scroll cases went spilling from his hands again.
“Lundin, you firebounder,” Martext raged, stomping over to him. Iimar the Enchanter’s workroom was almost completely dark, except for the sunlight filtering down from the arrow slits in the hallway beyond. Martext kicked a half-melted taper out of his way and dropped his sword on the ground, kneeling next to the pile of brown cylindrical cases. “I thought you were taking us out of here.”
“After we get these scrolls,” he said, wincing as Martext stabbed the cases through the waistline of his pants-pack.
“It doesn’t matter how much we steal if we don’t make it out alive. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“Once we’re loaded up, we should head left down the hallway,” Lundin said, ignoring him. “I think that’s south, which will take us out towards Campos.”
“And we’ll just walk all the way home through the Tarmic, with every soldier in this damn place after us?”
They froze as footsteps in the hallway skidded to a halt. “Who’s there?” a thick voice demanded. A pair of heavy boots tramped down the stairs, followed by another pair as two scowling guards peered into the dark.
“For Delia!” the blood-curdling cry rang out.
The first guard turned as a mace came hurtling through the air and hammered into his neck. He crumpled down the last two stairs, gurgling as the musket fell out of his hands. The other guard dashed down the stairs and whirled around, his blade flashing, as a brown-haired cat pounced on him from the shadows. Elia brained him twice with the butt of her pistol until he threw her off, sending her careening into an iron candelabra. As he staggered to his feet, Martext rushed up from behind and swung his sword at the man’s head with all his strength.
“Are you okay, Elia?” he asked, breathing heavily.
Elia pulled herself to her feet and nodded, wincing where her ribs had hit the jagged metal stand.
Martext hesitated. “You know… next time, you can shoot with the gun, and hit with the mace…”
“I’m learning, all right?” she said through clenched teeth.
“Also, you might not want to yell so much,” Lundin said, adjusting the last of the scrolls. He raised his hands when he saw the forbidding look on her face. “Otherwise, that was amazing!”
“Oh, go pick something up!” she snarled at him. Martext backed away as she stomped for the stairs. “Now can we please get out of here?”
“Um, sure. Absolutely. Just to the… left…” Lundin trailed off. Elia was already out of sight.
He scrambled to his feet after Martext. Just as he got to the stairs, there was a screeching sound and a massive crash from somewhere to the left. “Spheres, what was that?” Martext said.
“Maybe Dame Miri got our signal?” Lundin said, his mouth going dry. A look from Martext said the tech believed that about as much as he believed it himself.
Sir Mathias powered down the hill in enormous strides, feeling the spring in his coils each time his feet touched the ground. The castle walls rose up higher and higher the closer he got, solemn and imposing. It was up to the ‘nauts to rush into the valley and take out the wall sentries as quickly as possible. If we don’t? Travelling on foot with all that open space to cover from the forest to the keep, the musketeers would be picked off by the dozens before they made it to the southern gate.
Rather, what used to be the southern gate. Dame Miri had steered the captured Caravan perfectly. Zig had rigged it up with a block on the accelerator so all the thing would do was go forward, and all Dame Miri had to do was concentrate on steering that wheel so the nose was lined up with the metal gate. He caught a glimpse of her, curled up behind some of the wreckage of the Caravan’s barricade outside the stone walls. She was busy pouring powder into the two pistols she’d stuffed in her vest. He grinned at the sight. It was a shame they didn’t have an extra suit for her; she was a damn fine ‘naut.
A musket ball struck the earth next to him. He took a three-meter leap to the side and kept running, and saw the other ‘nauts doing the same. They were like a field of armored grasshoppers, far too agile for the Caravan’s sentries to have a prayer of hitting. At least, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.
“Eyes!” Dame Gaulda bellowed, to his left. Mathias lowered his head and kept running as a volley of whistling projectiles left her armor. A few seconds later, there was a series of blinding flashes that spanned the air across most of the castle wall. The musket fire died off almost completely as the dazzled sentries struggled to get their bearings. As Sir Mathias looked up, a scream rang out. One of the Caravan goons stumbled forward over the parapet and tumbled end over end to the grassy earth. The wall was nice and close now. Mathias bent his legs and leapt.
In mid-air, he looked down at one of the soldiers clutching her eyes on the castle wall. His arm cannon barked and she fell backwards. Then he was descending, significantly sooner than he would have liked. Burn me, these walls are high! One hand pressed involuntarily at his waist where the controls for his thrust pack should have been. A mission in the Tarmic Woods? Why would we possibly need the packs for that? Just a waste of petrolatum! Sir Mathias sighed and braced himself as his body slammed into the castle wall.
He scrambled against the stone, stretching his arms as high as possible, and managed to latch the fingers of his right hand on the gap between two crenellations. He held himself there through sheer force of will and shook his head, dizzied from the impact. He reached his other hand up and grabbed the other side of the stony crenellation. Sir Mathias curled his legs up to his chest and shoved himself off against the wall. His armored body swung around one hundred eighty degrees before he let go of his stony handholds and flipped the rest of the revolution on to his feet on the top of the wall. He shook his wrist, chambering another round, and looked down. All the other ‘nauts were still on the ground, making a beeline for the open gate. Wimps, he sniffed.
There was a sound behind him, and he ducked. A musket ball whizzed over his head. He turned to see another soldier in red leather, his eyes streaming with tears as he tried to focus on the big black ‘naut. Sir Mathias clenched his fist, feeling the recoil of his gun as he watched the man sink to the stones. Shooting the blind wasn’t the most honorable way to fight, but he couldn’t feel anything beyond that first obligatory pang of conscience. People who put children on the battlefield don’t deserve any better.
A clatter of boots on metal made him glance downwards. Dame Julie was inside the courtyard, perched on the nose of the ruined Caravan. She leapt skywards and extended her glider, curving back towards the walls. She landed in between a pair of soldiers shaking off their blindness, and laid them low with two sharp blows from her sword. Mathias lowered his head and charged towards the guards on his side of the wall. The longer they pressed the momentum, the more of their team would be likely to come home.
The ‘nauts huddled in the courtyard moments later, their suits trailing smoke. “South wall’s clear,” Sir Mathias reported, his heart pounding with exertion.
“You and Gaulda keep the courtyard secure,” Sir Kelley said, stabbing his finger towards the ground. Mathias looked over his shoulder. The musketeers were most of the way to the gate, able to navigate the distance and barricades without a single shot to worry about. There was a lot of firepower coming his way to support them. He nodded.
“Sir Kelley!” Orinoco called out, standing by the castle door. She gestured to the western wall. “We’ll take the front; you flank from the side! Let’s find those Civics!”
Sir Kelley hesitated.
“Remember,” Mathias said, “You’re here for the other two.”
Sir Kelley made a very rude gesture at him before turning away. Sir Mathias grinned, stretching out his arms, and sprinted over to Dame Gaulda’s side.
“I just want to go home,” Elia whispered.
“Me too, me too,” Lundin reassured her under his breath. They hunkered behind the base of a hulking statue as the endless stream of soldiers kept dashing through at the intersection in front of them. At least none of them seems inclined to turn this way, he thought. There was the unmistakable sound of gunfire further ahead; outside, from the muffled sound of it. Leave it to soldiers to choose to run towards the gunshots, but he supposed it made sense. That’s their job…
“Should we try another way?” Martext said in his ear.
Lundin peered around the statue’s square base. There was definitely a Great Hall feel to the room below them, with its eight massive pillars, high ceilings, and the grand staircase leading down towards a four-meter wooden door. Greatsight also told him that there were currently thirty-one soldiers positioned in the hall, with two officers (judging by their brightly colored armbands) and more entering at a rate of two every ten seconds.
He sat back and pressed his back against the cool marble, closing his eyes. “If I knew another way, I’d say yes.”
“If you’re improvising this whole thing, what’s the harm in looking for another way? A staircase underground, to another one of those tunnels?”
“But see, right there? That’s definitely a door to the outside. And I’m almost definite that it’s on the south side, which is where we want to be.”
“I just want to be home. I’m serious,” Elia whispered. “Senior tech, if you can’t promise me that something like this will never happen to us again, I’m going to request a reassignment.”
“Elia, if it meant that this would never happen to me again, I’d request a reassignment out of my own skin.” Lundin opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “But first, we’ve got to find a way out of here.”
“Why don’t we take the side door?” Elia sniffed.
Lundin froze. He looked down the hallway. The flow of soldiers had stopped as the last pair clomped their way down into the Great Hall. And so a right-hand turn at the intersection would indeed take them directly to a blocky wooden door. He’d seen and dismissed it earlier; but if the soldiers were done materializing…
“Better than running out down the middle,” Martext shrugged.
“Come on, come on,” Lundin said. They stood carefully, crouching low as they moved from behind the statue. Lundin adjusted his pants around his shoulders as best he could, too nervous to feel ridiculous. There wasn’t anyone else coming down the intersection. They moved as quickly and quietly as they could down the hall towards the side door, when an all-too-familiar deep voice rang out behind them.
“You!”
Lundin turned. There, filling the hallway on the far side of the castle, was Sir Ulstead. His golden eyes were beaming towards them, and he crouched like a wolf ready to pounce.
“Get in there!” Lundin shouted, shoving Martext and Elia forward. Martext fumbled with the handle and swung the door open. Lundin looked backwards to see the wolf-headed ‘naut sprinting towards them at unnatural speed. There was the sound of huge doors opening, and the Great Hall started echoing with gunfire and noise. Someone was advancing into the castle—Dame Miri and her reinforcements, with any luck. Not that it’ll do us any good if Ulstead kills us in a back corner first, he thought, panting with fear. He slammed the door shut behind them and took the claustrophobic staircase down two steps at a time after the techs.
They were in a small sculpture gallery, with life-sized marble portraits of men in waistcoats and women in expansive dresses. The statuary was interspersed with stone boxes of earth, housing meticulously trimmed ornamental shrubs with jade leaves and vibrant flowers. Sunlight beat into the room from four enormous windows that stretched from waist height on the wall to the midpoint of the curved ceiling. It was a beautiful, meditative space, which didn’t mean a thing right now. All that mattered was the door to the outside. The egress was just a few dozen meters ahead, on the western wall.
“There,” Martext said, pointing. Already saw it, thanks. But Lundin still nodded, redoubling his speed.
His heart sank as the door at the top of the staircase burst open. “Run, run,” he told Elia as she turned around, her eyes widening. He refused to look back.
“Senior tech!” she shouted, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him sideways. They leapt together onto the flagstone floor, skidding painfully on their shoulders. The ‘naut crashed to the ground where they had been standing, having taken the entire staircase in a single leap. Elia scrambled for her pistol and fired, clipping the ‘naut in the shoulder. The musket ball glanced off Sir Ulstead’s armor and ricocheted upwards, cracking one of the sky-high windows.
Weapon, Lundin thought frantically. But there was nothing nearby but earth and twigs, Greatsight told him with heartless accuracy. The hinges of a door creaked by the western wall. As least Martext made it out, he thought, his breath sounding ragged in his ears. The wolf-headed ‘naut stepped towards them, his boots echoing against the stone. No taunts, no threats as he advanced on the transfixed techs. Just the quiet, implacable, businesslike menace of a professional killer.
Quick footsteps clattered on the flagstones by the outside, and a dark shape came rushing at Ulstead from behind. “Spheres, Martext, get out of here!” Lundin screamed. There was less than nothing the poor tech could do against a monster like this.
But then a basso gunshot rang out, unbearably loud at this close range, and Ulstead toppled sideways, clutching his shoulder. And then there was a black-armored figure in front of them, his faceplate sharply pointed, steam rising out of his back. The new figure reached out a hand.
“Well, well,” Sir Kelley said.
Stunned, Lundin pushed Elia forward. Kelley pulled her to her feet and steered her towards the far wall. Bewildered, she looked back, stumbling towards the open door. “Look out!” she screamed as Sir Ulstead kicked out with tree-trunk legs, clouting Kelley in the side. The Recon ‘naut spiraled through the air and collided with a statue of a dancing woman, shattering the marble and collapsing behind the statue’s base.
“Elia, run!” Lundin shouted out, scrambling to his feet. Greatsight let him see Martext safely outside, staring through the window. Elia started jogging towards the door, glancing back at the wolf-headed Ulstead’s movements as he stalked across the marble pedestals towards the shattered statue. Weapon, weapon, weapon. Lundin grasped a fist-sized stone from the garden bed and watched helplessly as it slipped through his fingers, clattering to the flagstones. He swore at himself, tearing up as he watched Ulstead advance towards Sir Kelley, seeing it all but unable to do anything.
A jagged chunk of marble flashed through the air. It clipped Sir Ulstead on the outside of his knee, and the huge ‘naut stumbled with the sound of protesting motors. Sir Kelley launched himself high into the air, his black truncheon in his hands. Ulstead fell to one knee in the bed of bushes and raised his arm. His shot flew past Kelley, wide by just a quarter-meter, and the small red projectile struck the ceiling between two windows. The roof exploded in a shower of stone and glass, pelting the ‘nauts with debris. The force of the explosion threw Sir Kelley forward, tumbling into the bushes next to Lundin. He covered his face as twigs and pebbles pelted him from head to toe.
“Spheres, Kelley, are you okay?” Lundin whispered, brushing himself off and crouching next to the planter.
“I hate you,” Sir Kelley said, rolling out of the topiaries. He shook his wrist, and a new musket ball rolled into place in his arm cannon. He took aim as Sir Ulstead rose up, slowly, like a giant from the ancient fables, and turned on them with gold eyes blazing.
“Up and right,” Lundin said at Kelley’s shoulder, his eyes widening.
“What?”
“Four centimeters up, three to the right. Please!”
Ulstead shook his wrist, chambering the next round. A single red bullet from the big ‘naut’s cannon would mingle their bodies into one cloud of bone, and that was the absolute last way in the world Lundin wanted to die.
