Seasons of War, page 38
“Good evening,” Omen said.
The Cleaver stared. Omen could see himself in the mirrored visor. He looked nervous. Hell, he looked terrified.
But then the Cleaver started to undo his helmet.
It took a moment for the intention to register, and all of a sudden Omen was taking a step towards him with his hands up, his head shaking. This wasn’t the plan, for God’s sake. This wasn’t the—
The helmet was lifted. “What do you think?” Reznor Rake asked. “Another one of my cunning disguises. It had you fooled, didn’t it?”
Omen stared, and Reznor chuckled.
“Man, you should see your expression right now. You look so stupid.”
“Why?” Omen croaked. He cleared his throat. “Why are you dressed as a Cleaver?”
“I told you – I’m a master of disguise. And what better way to stroll through Roarhaven than as someone who absolutely nobody wants to stop and ask for directions?”
Great minds think alike, whispered a little voice in the back of Omen’s head. “Where’s Auger?” he asked.
Reznor countered with, “Where’s the Obsidian Blade?”
“Close by.”
“What a coincidence – same with your brother. You give me the knife, I’ll give you your twin back.”
Omen shook his head. “Auger first.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“How about a compromise?”
“This is a compromise, kid. Me not killing you, that’s the compromise.”
Omen hesitated, then took the knife wrapped in cloth from his jacket, and Reznor plucked it from his grip. “Now, where’s Auger?”
“Just hold on a second.”
“Tell me where he is. We had a deal!”
“There’s no hurry, kid,” Reznor said, unwrapping the knife. He nodded, unsurprised. “Yeah, this isn’t it.”
Omen tried to look innocent. “Are you sure?”
Reznor sighed. “This is a knife you’ve painted black. Give me the real one, or I’ll return this one to you, pointy end first.”
Omen squared his shoulders. “Not until you give me Auger.”
“Kid. Kid, think about this. You’re putting yourself in danger because, what, you think I’ll take the Obsidian Blade and not return your brother to you? You think I’ll hang on to him? For God’s sake, why would I do that? So I can force you to give me more things? What other things do you have that I might possibly want? A pen? A schoolbag? Give me the Blade, I’ll tell you which car Auger is in, you’ll go down to get him, and we’ll go our separate ways. This couldn’t be simpler, it really—”
He stopped, turning his head, listening for something Omen couldn’t hear.
“You come alone?” he asked.
Omen nodded as honestly as he could.
Reznor took the scythe staff in his hand. “What is this? This a set-up? You laid a trap for me, is that what you did?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
A flick of the wrist and the scythe staff lengthened and the blade popped out. “You stay here,” Reznor said.
Omen nodded quickly, and Reznor went to investigate. So Auger was in the car park, in a car, on a lower level. Excellent.
Omen crept to the next ramp and hurried down. He ran to each of the seven parked cars, whispered Auger’s name to each boot, and then ran down to the next level – and ducked.
Tancred stood leaning against a blue Ford. His arms were folded and he looked bored. There was a crowbar resting on the boot, within easy reach.
Quietly, Omen sneaked from car to patch of darkness to car. Keeping low, he circled Tancred, than crept up as far as he could from the other direction.
Between where he was hiding and the Ford was a large, brightly lit area that offered zero cover – all Tancred had to do was catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, or hear the barest echo of a footstep …
Omen took off his jacket, lay down, and slowly started rolling towards the Ford.
Tancred was still facing the other way. Over and over Omen went, his arms by his sides to keep his phone in his pocket and to prevent any loose coins from jangling. Rolling. Rolling.
And then he was there, at the Ford, coming up to a crouch. He took a moment to calm down, and then rose up to peek.
The crowbar was his best chance. Grab it and whack Tancred over the head. No, not the head. Too easy to block. The legs, then. The shins.
He straightened. He’d have to lunge to grab it, though, and Tancred would see him, whirl on instinct, and there was no way that Omen could win the tug-of-war that would follow.
Another approach, then. Omen took a deep, deep breath.
He roared as he leaped forward and Tancred screamed and jumped away, arms up, covering his head, and Omen snatched the crowbar and brought it crashing into Tancred’s left shin.
Tancred’s scream turned to a howl and Omen darted, spun, whacked the other shin. Tancred was buckling, one hand trying to clutch both shins, the other grasping at Omen, who moved in and struck that left shin again.
Tancred fell sideways, knees rising to his chest, arms covering his shins, eyes squeezed shut, a miserable whine escaping his lips.
“Auger!” Omen hissed, fumbling at the boot latch. From within, a muffled reply.
The boot sprang open. Auger, in pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt, blinked up at him, hands tied behind his back, ankles bound, a gag in his mouth. Omen reached in, took him by the shoulders as Auger stuck his bare feet out, and heaved.
Auger stood, nearly toppled, twisting to show Omen the shackles around his wrists and then nodding to Tancred. The key. Tancred had the key in his pocket.
Gripping the crowbar, Omen stepped closer to Tancred. “The key,” he said. “Give me the key.”
“Gonna … kill you …” Tancred snarled.
“Give me the key or I’ll whack you again.” Omen took another step, adrenaline surging into his chest as he shouted, “Give me! The key!”
Tancred glared, took one hand away from his shin to dig into his pocket, then dropped the key on the ground.
“Kick it over here,” Omen demanded.
“I can’t kick anything!”
“Oh,” said Omen. “Yeah, sorry.” Ready to swing at any moment, Omen moved closer, then reached down, picked up the key.
Tancred roared and went for him and Omen shrieked and swung the crowbar and it was wrenched from his grip, and then Tancred was using it as a crutch to stand.
Omen hurried back to Auger, who hopped round, showing him the shackles again. The key skittered against the lock.
Auger made encouraging sounds. Tancred was on his feet now.
The key went in.
Tancred lurched towards them.
The key turned. The shackles opened. Tancred swung.
Auger leaped, both hands closing around the crowbar as it came in, using it as a fulcrum to swing his legs up, his bound feet crashing into Tancred’s jaw. Tancred went down and Auger landed, almost lost his balance, but got it back and grinned behind his gag.
Omen crouched, started working on the knots at his brother’s ankles while Auger ripped away the gag. “Knew you’d find me,” he said. “Do you know what’s going on here? They didn’t tell me anything.”
“They wanted the Obsidian Blade,” Omen said, making a mess of the rope.
“You didn’t bring it, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Good man,” Auger said, pulling his feet free. “Right. Now where’s the other one? Do we kick his ass, too?”
“Omen!”
They looked round at the roar, at Reznor coming down the ramp with the scythe in his hands and a furious look on his face.
“Or how about we just run?” Auger suggested.
They sprinted up the next ramp then ran for the stairs – and there was someone there, a Cleaver, running towards them.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he passed.
Auger shot a look at Omen. “Did that Cleaver just talk?”
Omen kept running.
Omen and Auger got to the stairs, and, somewhere below them, Crepuscular met Reznor with a sharp clang of clashing blades.
It was the morning of the invasion, and Valkyrie didn’t have any time left.
She took off her disguise, left it in the alley behind Nye’s building, and activated the necronaut suit. She shot into the air, staying away from windows. Landed on the roof.
No sign of Nye.
The professor was late on the one morning she couldn’t afford to let the schedule slip. Tahil na Kurge buzzed with excitement. It practically vibrated. There were already tens of thousands waiting beyond the barricades on Merchant’s Square. The army was there, too, standing in regiments, leading all the way back to the district they had commandeered. All eyes flickered to the three massive portals and the stage that had been constructed before them. The stage with the five sets of chains.
Valkyrie checked her watch. Nye was almost ten minutes late.
“Fine,” she muttered, and opened the door and went down the steps.
Even though each floor was empty of people and cleared of equipment, Valkyrie went slowly and stuck to the shadows. It wouldn’t do to run into trouble this close to the executions. Skulduggery and Tanith were depending on her, even if they didn’t know it. The last thing she needed at this point was a complication.
She reached Nye’s floor, really wishing she had Saracen’s ability to see through each door as she approached it. If she had to take out the bodyguard, then fair enough – but she’d really rather get through the morning without having to fight anyone.
She needn’t have worried. She found the bodyguard slumped on the floor outside Nye’s laboratory, his eyes open and staring and so very dull. She walked in.
“Going somewhere nice?” she asked.
Nye barely looked up from the papers it was stuffing into a bag. “Somewhere new, at any rate.”
“I see Cark didn’t make it.”
“No, he did not.”
“Poison?”
“A drop. In his tea. He liked his tea.”
“You were going to leave without saying goodbye.”
It closed its bag and looked up. “You forced me into this. No matter the outcome, Mevolent will have some blame to lay at my door. If I help you, I am a traitor for what I will do. If I tell him about you, I am a traitor for what I have done. I have four ways out. Three of them run an unpalatable risk of death, so I have chosen the option that brings with it the higher chance of staying alive.”
The door opened and a woman came through – freezing when she saw Valkyrie. “He’s making me do this,” she said. “He’s blackmailing me. I’d never—”
“Don’t bother explaining yourself to her,” Nye said, annoyed. “This isn’t one of Mevolent’s people. This is Valkyrie Cain. Recognise her?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “The terrorist.”
“Exactly,” said Nye. “She doesn’t know who you are, and she has no one to tell of what you’re about to do. Come over here.”
She hesitated, then hurried over.
“Teleporter?” Valkyrie asked.
“Shunter,” Nye answered, passing the bag to the woman. “I cannot reinforce the shield, not while it is active. If you somehow succeed in destroying the portal machines, the shield will only last a few more days, and then the draugar will swarm in. It is better for me to leave this world entirely.”
“To be honest, Professor, I don’t care what you do or where you go. Hand over the virus and I’ll wave you off.”
Nye and the Shunter stepped over to an orderly pile of bags and suitcases. “There is no virus, Miss Cain. I could have made one, absolutely, but I decided not to bother. I also alerted the Redhoods to your presence here.”
From below, the crash of a door being kicked open.
“Have a good death,” Nye said, and the Shunter put her hand on its arm and they flickered and vanished – taking the pile of cases with them.
Valkyrie whirled as the door burst open and Redhoods streamed in. Lightning flowed from both her hands, catching the first few full on. But they had those uniforms, and the uniforms had a knack for absorbing a whole lot of damage. They staggered, but kept coming, and more streamed in behind.
There were three doors in this lab. All three of them were now open and spewing Redhoods. They leaped over tables and slid under them and darted round them and their scythes left bright smears in the air.
Valkyrie launched herself backwards, rising off the floor. She hit the wall, her head brushing the ceiling, energy crackling around her as she hovered there, tried to figure out what the hell to do. But the Redhoods wouldn’t allow her any breathing room. Five of them braced themselves with their hands on the wall and the others ran up on to their shoulders and jumped, scythes slashing. Valkyrie had to push herself away from the wall, but the Redhoods were leaping from the tables, coming at her from all angles. One of them missed with the blade, but managed to snag her foot with his hand.
He fell, pulling her down with him.
Behind the thick red curtain, technicians were making sure the cables and tubes and wires that fed into the portal machines were all working. Tanith watched them from her knees. They moved quickly. No doubt they had done this a hundred times before – but she supposed it never did any harm to check again. On the other side of the curtain, a crowd of over a hundred thousand people waited excitedly.
“This is probably how actors feel,” she said.
“Probably,” Skulduggery said beside her.
“Can you imagine the nerves on opening night of some big Broadway show? I read this interview once with an actor, can’t remember who. His play opened with him in bed, and he thought it’d be pretty cool to already be in the bed before the audience arrived. So he’s there, under the covers, being very still and very quiet, and he’s listening to everyone come in and take their seats and chat and laugh and, bit by bit, he starts to get terrified. He gave himself stage fright by paying too much attention to the audience.”
“Yes,” Skulduggery said. Captain Assegai passed in front of them, issuing orders to the Redhoods and the soldiers. Technicians scattered before her like mice before a cat. “Although that’s not exactly like our situation, because we’re not here to act in a play; we’re here, in shackles, to be executed.”
“Well, yes, but I’d say the nerves are about the same.”
Skulduggery looked at her. “Indeed,” he said, and turned to the three Necromancers in chains beside them. “What about you lot? Are you nervous at all, regarding our impending doom?”
Two men and a woman. They, like Tanith and Skulduggery, were on their knees and dressed in sackcloth. Tanith didn’t know if this was ceremonial sackcloth or sackcloth with any special significance. The people who’d handed out the sackcloth hadn’t been interested in answering questions. She figured it was just regular old sackcloth. That’s how it felt, anyway. Scratchy.
“Death holds no mystery for us,” the first Necromancer said. He was a bit of a pretentious git. “We are ready to return to the Great Stream.”
“Lovely,” said Skulduggery.
There was a clock behind them. Tanith could just about read it if she twisted her neck. Ten minutes to go.
“Mevolent should be arriving soon,” she said. “It’s actually kind of impressive that he’s still executing his enemies himself, isn’t it? Like, I hate him and everything and he’s a really awful person, but to get to the level he’s at and not offload all the work to subordinates …”
“Yes,” Skulduggery said. “Looking at it like that, he’s really quite a salt-of-the-earth fellow, isn’t he?”
“Still hate him, though.”
“Well, that’s handy. You seem awfully chipper today.”
“That’s because I have faith.”
“Oh, good. Faith in what, exactly?”
“Valkyrie. She won’t let us get executed. She won’t let us get our heads chopped off. Or, my head chopped off, at least. How is Mevolent going to execute you?”
“I imagine the same way, only he’ll be using the God-Killer sword. That should kill me just as dead as it would kill anyone else.”
Tanith winced. “Your own sword.”
“Well, mine on loan, but yes.”
She thought about it. “I think I’d quite like it if he used my sword on me. It’s good quality. Sharp, you know? There’d be no hacking away at my neck. One swipe, clean through.”
“But, of course, it won’t come to that.”
“Oh, good point. No, Valkyrie will rescue us before that happens.”
Assegai heard that and she turned, a sneer on her lips. “I hope she tries,” she said. “I’ll be here waiting for her.”
Tanith chuckled. “Oh, she’ll kick your ass, sweetie.”
“She hasn’t managed it yet.”
A shrug. “She was just warming up.”
A soldier hurried over. “Captain Assegai, we just got word that the Redhoods encountered Valkyrie Cain in the Science Building.”
“Has she been apprehended?” Assegai asked. “Killed?”
“Neither, I’m afraid. She escaped.”
Assegai glowered. “And what is being done to capture her?”
“I, uh … I don’t know. You see, she can fly, and so—”
“I know she can fly,” Assegai snapped. “She’ll be coming here. OK, move everyone out. No soldiers, no engineers, nothing. I want to make this too good an opportunity for her to pass up, do you hear me? I want this area sealed off. Nobody in or out.”
“Yes, Captain,” the soldier said, giving her a salute. He stalked off to issue orders, and in moments the stage was empty save for those in chains and Assegai herself.
Tanith grinned. “She’s coming to kick your ass,” she said in a singsong voice.
Assegai grunted, walked away. She came back with a large bag that she dumped at her feet. “Your gear,” she said, opening it. Tanith’s leathers were in there. So was Skulduggery’s outfit. And Tanith’s sword.
“Took you long enough,” Skulduggery said.
“I’ve been busy,” Assegai responded. She went behind them, started unlocking the chains.
Tanith frowned. “I don’t get it.”
