Lemon sat on the driver’s bench of one of the troop wagons, a lone horse in the traces, skittish under her command. Chel looked up, blinking away smoke and disbelief.
‘How did you find me?’
‘Aye, you’re joking, eh? Look for the fuck-off explosions, there’s your wee bear, every time. Now are you coming or what?’
‘Where?’
‘Seriously, wee bear? You’re asking … Get the fuck aboard, will you?’
He hauled himself up beside her, the effort of lifting himself extraordinary and painful.
‘How—’
‘Later! Get in the back!’ She geed the horse, who was only too glad to be moving away from the giant burning ricks that surrounded them. They rumbled away over the broken ground, picking up speed, pulling out from behind the columns of oily smoke. Tents and shanty structures flew past, some smouldering; frantic church troops were milling between them.
‘There’s a big old bit of metal there, do you see it?’
‘Is this … Is this your kite?’
‘Later, wee bear, later! Grab that metal sheet and bring it up here.’
He dragged it up from the wagon floor, sliding it out from under the folded kite. He had no idea how she’d managed to get that aboard. The piece of black iron was heavy in his arms, a former armoured panel for one of their engines, its exposed mounting a decent handle. Shoulder screaming in its socket, he levered it to the driver’s bench.
‘What’s this for?’
‘I think we’re going to need it in a moment.’
‘Why?’
‘Because very soon they’re going to realize that we’re not on their side.’
Already the shouts were rising as they raced over the rough terrain, travelling faster than a wagon should, even in times of upheaval. Challenges went unanswered, and a moment later Chel saw crossbows ahead. Lemon steered the wagon for the roadway that led to the bridge, and Chel rolled the metal sheet around. A bolt thumped into the wagon’s side, a second pinged from Chel’s shield. He flinched, cursed, and the wagon kept rolling. His shoulder was screaming.
‘How did you … pull this off, Lemon?’
‘When I snagged the tether, I dropped what wee packages I had left there and then, not exactly the plan. Still, it went up like a fucken effigy, cleared the place out no bother. Then your lot went up over that way and the rest scattered. Found this wagon unattended, thought it might be prudent to see if you needed a lift.’
‘And you brought the kite?’
‘Aye. Now just keep that fucken shield up, bear, I am not dying here.’
‘What if they shoot the horse?’
‘They just lost a whole bunch of men and horses, won’t want to shoot this one if they can help it.’
Another bolt pinged off the shield as Chel swivelled it to protect them both.
‘You’d better be right, Lemon.’
‘Aye, no kidding.’
They crested the rise of the plateau, still thundering at speed toward the bridge. Ranks and ranks of soldiers came into view, confessors, mercenaries, miscellaneous. Row upon row, ordered, marching, taking up position to the tolling of gloomy bells. The path to the bridge looked far from clear.
‘We’ll never make it.’
‘Never say never, wee bear. We’ve got something they haven’t.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Surprise!’
They rocketed past the troops, no longer fearing shots from in front. The ranks they saw were focused on what lay before them, not behind, either the broken bridge or some kind of roped construction behind it. Lemon steered for the bridge, then veered, dragging their foaming horse wide.
‘What is it?’ Chel called from over his shoulder, steadying himself on the rocking wagon. Every muscle in his body was aflame, the sheet of metal he gripped a final insult.
‘Fucken bridge is blocked! There’s something on it, something massive. We’d never get past.’
‘The bridge is down anyway! How were we going to get across it?’ The wagon lurched again as Lemon corrected her course. They were heading for the gorge, but not the bridge. Somewhere off to one side. ‘Wait, where are we going? Lemon? Lemon!’
‘Told you, wee bear. Surprise!’
***
The ranks of confessors were little more than blurs in the flying dust. Chel peered over the shield, over Lemon’s hunched form, trying to make out their new destination. The flying bolts had fallen away, the church army’s focus elsewhere.
‘Lemon? Lemon! Where in hells are you … God’s bollocks, what are you doing?’
‘Aye,’ Lemon called back over her shoulder, forcing the horse onward, ever faster toward the gorge, ‘right, wee bear. I’ll be needing you to drop that metal chunk about now, and grab the old kite, yes?’
‘What?’
‘Grab the fucken kite, bear, and tie us to it. Pronto!’
Chel looked past her, at the approaching gorge. At the little projecting stub of stone in their path: the old bridge, the fallen ruin. Fifty strides of its span were missing, long since dropped into the chasm beneath.
‘You cannot be serious.’
‘Do I look like I’m having a wee fucken joke, bear? Chop, chop now, any moment old Dobbin here is going to twig on our intentions.’
‘I thought the Clyde was an earthbound creature?’
‘Needs must, wee bear, needs must!’
The wagon bumped over the loose ground, re-joining the ancient road that led to the stump of the old bridge. Great plumes of dust rose in their wake, carried away by the furious wind. Realizing Lemon was not only serious but committed, Chel dropped to his knees, scrabbling with the ropes and cords. He looped one over himself, finding the kite handles, then threw a second loop over his driver.
The stump was growing in their vision, wider and longer than Chel had realized from far away; it sloped up and out over the gorge, before it suddenly broke off, leaving nothing beneath.
‘We tied?’
‘Yes!’
‘Then lift it high, because here we go!’
Chel could see nothing but the jutting spar of sand-coloured stone, and the blurred towering form of the city beyond it, impossibly distant. The wagon jumped and rocked as they mounted the stump, the panicked horse throwing sparks on the old stone. With a grunt, Chel braced his legs against the wagon-sides and hauled the kite upwards, lifting it into the oncoming rush. It reared in his grip, its upper tier ballooning taut, the wings lifting from his grasp. He felt the rope at his midriff snapping tight.
Lemon threw down the reins and scrambled to her feet, throwing her arms around Chel. ‘Hold on, wee bear,’ she said with a goggle-eyed grin. Chel worried that he saw madness in her gaze, but it seemed a little late to care.
The wagon crested the rise of the bridge and the horse saw the void ahead. It slammed down its hooves, scoring grooves in ancient stone, and tried to turn away. The wagon, propelled by vicious momentum, sailed on past, swinging then tipping as its wheels slid perpendicular to its motion. Straps snapped, and the wagon was free, skidding loose and slanting, travelling with impossible speed. Chel and Lemon swung and lurched with it, and then it fell away. The wagon pitched away beneath them into the void as the wind caught the kite full-on, and Lemon released the metal shield.
In a heartbeat, they were airborne again, sailing forward over the chasm toward the city, ropes cutting them like cheese-wire. The wind snarled and buffeted them, trying to drive them back, but their combined mass and momentum carried them onward even as the kite’s lift faltered. Chel gripped at whatever he could hold, his every muscle aflame, his shoulder a stab of red-hot ire. Lemon only laughed, cackling around his waist into the howling wind, crowing her defiance to the skies.
He tried to shut his eyes, tried not to look, but terrible fascination dragged his gaze downward. The gorge was sailing by beneath them, a chasm of impossible depth, a thin white ribbon of water glimmering in its stygian depths. His stomach immediately tried to exit through his mouth, but his gritted teeth blocked its passage. The pillars of the great bridge rose up into the light like ancient bones, and strung between them, the spindly trench of the aqueduct, its frothing water sparkling in the sun. Something moved within those sparkles, crawling shapes like ants, but at this distance they could be—
‘Heads up, wee bear!’
The wall was in front of them, the wall of the city, streaked and ancient. Chel was astonished.
‘We’re going to get over it! We’re going to go right over it!’
The wind stumbled in the city’s shadow, and they were dropping, little more than the speed of their fall keeping them travelling forward. Suddenly they were no longer sailing over the wall. They were heading straight for it.
‘Shit,’ said Chel, as ancient, weathered blocks filled his vision. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
The kite crested the wall. Chel and Lemon did not. Chel slammed into the stone, shoulder-first and gasping, his grip loosened and teeth rattled in his jaw, as Lemon thumped against his guts. Purple stars burst in his vision. They hung there, snagged on the baroque crenellations of the side wall, as the battered kite slid over the top and out of view.
‘Aye, fuck,’ Lemon moaned. ‘Don’t look down, eh?’
Chel looked down. The void waved back.
Lemon cackled again. ‘Warned you! Now hold still, I’m going to climb you.’
***
‘You know what, wee bear, that could have been a lot worse.’
Chel limped down the steps from the deserted battlements behind her, clutching his everything. He could taste blood again, and his side was scraped raw as meat. His shoulder throbbed with particular malevolence.
‘Maybe for you,’ he said, spitting pink.
‘Thought we’d only need to get over the gap in the main bridge, never thought we’d get over that one. Didn’t see us getting up enough speed.’
‘What? You mean—’
‘All past now, wee bear, best not dwell, eh?’ She nodded to a panicked citizen at the foot of the steps, who seemed astonished to see filthy and battered people descending. ‘Don’t you worry, we’re with the prince. No, no! Not that one, the other one. The good one. And she’s off. Ah, well.’
They reached the winding street, empty of traffic. Bells rang out across the city. Somewhere, up on the battlements, a ruined kite collapsed into a heap.
Chel attempted to roll the ache from his shoulder. It didn’t work. ‘I saw something, as we crossed the gorge. Looked like figures on the aqueduct. People.’
‘The one that runs under the big bridge? The big broken bridge that they can’t currently cross?’ Lemon was beginning to gabble as adrenaline flushed through her. ‘The unbroken aqueduct that runs straight into the bowels of the city where there’s probably chuff-all defences, meaning a torrent of red bastards could come windmilling up our proverbial at any moment? That fucken aqueduct?’
Chel swallowed. ‘Um, yeah. That fucken aqueduct.’
***
They made for the gate, pounding through the ruined, winding streets, skirting debris and broken stone, trying to ignore the savage aches that riddled them. They spotted Rennic from the battered rampart above the third gate, Kosh beside him. They were fussing over something in the ruined courtyard below.
‘Little man.’ Rennic did well to keep the surprise from his voice. ‘Good work out there, the bombardments have stopped. How the fuck did you get back into the city?’
Chel tried not to remember, suppressing a wince as he pressed one hand to his side. ‘Unconventionally.’
Lemon was hopping from foot to foot behind him, still flooded with manic energy. ‘Where’s Fossy? What’s the crack here? Wee bear reckons he saw a tide of red bastards crawling in along the aqueduct.’
Rennic’s eyes widened, their whites thoroughly bloodshot. ‘Fuck. Are you sure, little man?’
Chel struggled to answer, parts of his body now refusing to answer instructions. ‘Maybe not a tide as such …’
‘Well, there’s a quivering shit-pile of the bastards on the bridge right now, and very shortly they are going to be giving our front door a little tap.’ He gestured to the battered second gate before them. It suddenly looked very flimsy.
‘How? The bridge is—’
‘We’re not the only ones who can work great feats of engineering, little man,’ he said with a nod to Kosh. She was still fussing over something, a contraption of wood and wire, large handles on one side. Chel had no idea what it was. ‘They’ve built a tower and laid it on its back. They’re going to roll it over the gap.’
That was what had blocked the bridge. Chel remembered the ranks and ranks of red-clad troops standing ready at the bridge mouth as he and Lemon had fled. ‘They’re coming above and below at the same time.’
Rennic’s nod was grim. ‘Surely looks that way. Lemon, Foss should be in the workshops, keeping an eye on things there. Our friendly mother-lovers may still be around. Find out where that aqueduct kicks out, and what we’ve got to defend ourselves with.’
‘Righto, boss.’ She skedaddled.
‘What about me?’ Chel felt himself shiver, despite the day’s growing heat. ‘Should we tell the prince what’s going on?’
Rennic had turned back to Kosh’s contraption. ‘I’m sure our glorious leader has full command of the situation. You just missed him here, before he scurried off back behind some thick walls.’
‘Oh? How was he?’
Rennic half-turned, speaking over his shoulder. ‘Fucking dreadful. Still not wearing his chain. Living in constant fear of assassination by his own guards or being flung across the bridge by an angry populace.’
‘Ah. Did he, uh, say anything?’
‘Yeah.’ He affected a girlish squeak, speaking as if his mouth were stuffed with plums. ‘“Don’t let me down, chaps, if we don’t see these buggers off, I doubt my death will be quick or pleasant.”’
‘It’s like he’s here with us now.’
Kosh stood back from her device. ‘It is ready.’
Chel tried to peer past them. ‘What is it?’
‘A leveller.’ Rennic nodded to himself, then turned to the guards huddled at the courtyard’s edges. ‘Right, you lot, bring in the rest. And if you want to keep your hands, best be careful as fuck.’
The guards set about ferrying jugs and pots to locations around the rubble-strewn courtyard. They kept their distance, but their curiosity about Kosh’s machine was undeniable. Chel heard their whispers and concerned mutterings, and wondered himself. Over the wrecked outer wall, beyond the debris and the ruined bridge, the plateau was a sea of movement. Fires still burned across it, sending stinking black plumes into the morning sky. Somewhere, something large was moving.
‘Can they understand me?’ Rennic gestured at the meagre complement of guards manning the walls above. The guard captain nodded, and Rennic called up to them. ‘Take shots as it comes, but be ready to fall back the moment they cross the span. Understand? Drop back to this courtyard, keep away from the gate.’
The woman’s frown was deep beneath the sweat-grime, her once-gleaming armour pitted and scorched. ‘We do not hold the gate?’
‘They’ve learnt their lesson this time. That gate is doomed. But we’ll be waiting for them here.’ He patted the device in front of him, its apparatus peeking over the barricade. ‘And we can always fall back to the last gate. They’ve got nowhere to go. Remember, on my signal, shields up.’
The captain nodded again. ‘Shields up.’
‘Rennic, what about the aqueduct? Can we send some guards—’
‘Do you see any spare fucking house guards, little man? I need all these people and more. If this next bit goes to shit, I doubt any of our deaths will be quick and painless, yes? Now, alchemist. When I want it to do its thing, I pull this?’
‘I will do it.’
Rennic blinked, then stared at Kosh through narrowed eyes. ‘You sure? This isn’t the place for you, remember? Too risky.’
‘I want to be here.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘To watch them suffer. For what they did.’
Rennic chuckled, black, bleak. Her nostrils widened in irritation. ‘I mean it! Do not disparage me, mercenary! I have seen death before, plenty of it.’
‘Ever pulled the lever yourself? Watched the light leave another’s eyes?’
She didn’t reply. Instead, she reached down and rummaged in her satchel, then withdrew a flattish object of wood and metal. It gleamed in her hands, and Chel saw it had straps and eyeholes. It looked freshly made. Memories of Denirnas Port flooded back, the little grill-man on the rooftop overlooking the bay, the masks strung on his wall. His stern-eyed daughter.
‘Do you think,’ Kosh said, moving to the rear of the device, the mask strung around her neck, ‘that the big one will be among them?’
Rennic moved beside her, eyes on the gate. He put one hand on the device, feeling the bristling points. Chel ducked down behind them and their barricade. It seemed too late to do anything else now.
‘I fucking hope so.’
‘Good.’
Kosh pulled on her battle-mask.
***
The archers on the gatehouse were firing. The thing on the bridge was in range. Chel tried to picture it, from Rennic’s description, from the views he’d snatched on his cantering fly-past. Long and low, fat wheels torn from an alchemical engine, metal shielding likewise. A vehicle built with one purpose: to cross the broken span and hold the gap, impervious to fire and arrow alike. It would likely achieve its goal.
He peered forward at the odd device behind which Rennic and Kosh were braced, its levers and pulleys, odd torsions and wires. A leveller, Rennic had called it. He hoped they were right.
‘Last chance, alchemist,’ Rennic murmured. ‘We’ll be getting a polite knock at any moment.’
Kosh ignored him, her bone-fingers gripped tight on the device’s levers.
‘By the way, children, if this goes tits-up, we’re not going to make it through the third gate. I want you to know that. What I said to the guards was a platitude.’
Kosh looked at him, her gaze cold and fierce as a winter storm through the eyes of the roaring mask. ‘I am not a fool, mercenary. I know you were lying. Now be silent.’
He nodded, and watched the walls. Chel saw one of the archers drop, an arrow jutting. Short arrow, bright-fletched. He stared at the arrow, unblinking, then swallowed. He’d seen arrows like that once before, in a mountain gully, when they’d been ambushed by archers in tan and fur. Rennic had seen it too. He must have seen it. He was staring right at it.
Rennic looked back to the Nort.
‘You really want to hurt them?’
The archers were falling back, abandoning the battlements, the gate with them. It was almost time. Kosh only grunted.
Rennic reached out and nudged the nose of the device downwards.
‘Then aim low.’
Her jaw jutted behind the mask, but she said nothing. She was trembling, fine as a hummingbird’s wings. Rennic’s fist went up, a signal to the huddled guards: shields up.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it’s still not too—’
The gate exploded.
***
Fragments of wood billowed through a pulsing cloud of pulverized stone. A ripple seemed to travel through the gatehouse, then with a sudden finality it caved inwards, its pillars shot, the ramparts rumbling downwards into a steaming mass. The severed walls on either side of the churning mire stood proud, blasted but resolute, but within the fog of debris was only chaos. Chel peered past the others and over the barricade, over the device, looking into heaving murk. He could see the shapes that moved within, as the wind’s current pushed the great plume of smoke and matter out over the plateau.
Rennic’s cry went up. ‘Here they come!’
The alchemist was unmoved, uncowed despite the explosion. Her masked eyes were fixed on the void where the gate had stood, the levers fast in her white-knuckled grip. Chel watched the shapes, saw a lumbering form picking its way over rubble, slow, ungainly. It had to be Hurkel.
He heard the creak of the mechanism in Kosh’s grip, saw Rennic put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
‘Not yet.’
She frowned but nodded.
The line of confessors was trudging into view, bobbing shapes riding the debris, others faint behind them. Tall, oblong, chanting something unfamiliar as they came. The lead troops were almost clear of the dust cloud and into the courtyard. He saw some of the surviving house guards poking out from their hiding places, one or two levelling their bows.
Rennic’s voice was clear, calm. ‘Not yet.’
The first of the attackers cleared the shattered gatehouse, not an armoured Pentarch at all, but a bullish figure in dust-streaked lamellar armour, holding a great metal shield most of his height, in front. Another followed, shield likewise high, with others at their flanks. A line of smaller, dusty figures loomed behind them.
‘Oh, shit,’ Rennic whispered. ‘Mawn siege-breakers.’
The Nort flashed him a look of angry concern.
‘Now?’
The Mawn were striding unopposed into the courtyard, spreading, shielding those who came behind. Chel could see their weapons now, see the light-armoured shapes scampering over the smoking ruins behind them. They were picking up speed, assured that their assault had blasted the defenders away, delighted at the lack of resistance.
Chel saw her from the corner of his eye, recognized the pattern of her gait as she descended into the courtyard. He saw her face beneath the helmet, sweeping the ruined defences, picking out the hidden defenders, realizing at last the trap that was set. He saw Grassi’s hand go up, saw Rennic holding himself taut as a bowstring.
‘Now.’
***
The net burst from Kosh’s device, a maelstrom of shrapnel strung with wire. It spread wide as it flew, enveloping the lead breakers, bearing them from their feet. It carved into flesh and splintered armour, savage cuts of wire driven on by jagged chunks of metal, blasted from the device by a spark and a roar of accelerant. The slicing wire tore beneath shields and wrapped shins, slashing the Mawn’s legs from beneath them. At last it came to rest, the front wave of assault hobbled and downed, struggling beneath the merciless grip of the cleaving wire.
Rennic had already given the second signal. From around the courtyard, the guards threw their clay vessels. Pottery shattered around the beleaguered Mawn, and their cries of pain rose to panic when the oil within splashed over them. The breakers struggled to free themselves against the cutting wire, scrambling to escape the sprays of warmed oil that doused them. Those at the back of the ranks, their progress blocked, tried to fight their way through to where they assumed their comrades were joined in battle. Screams and shouts filled the courtyard, and Rennic raised his fist to give the final signal.
She was staring right at him. Trapped beneath the scrabbling bulk of a stricken siege-breaker, the blood from the man’s deep wounds running thick over her, she was looking straight at him. Her helmet was gone, her long hair spread thick around her. Grassi was staring into his eyes.
With great strength, she nodded.
Rennic gave the signal, and the courtyard billowed bright with flame. A filthy smell overpowered the wind, burning flesh, hair, and lacquer, screaming panic torn from throats by the hunger of the flames. Chel looked away, up at the sky, at the distant fractured wall. Then back, unable to keep his gaze away.
Rennic’s hand rapped Kosh’s shoulder, his eyes still fixed forward.
‘Give me the crossbow.’
‘What?’
‘Give me the fucking crossbow.’
He lifted, drew, loaded, sighted, all with his eyes on her, wavering through the heat. She never looked away, never screamed or struggled, just held his gaze as her hair began to smoke and curl.
‘Goodbye,’ Rennic said to Grassi, and was sure she said the same.
He fired.
***
The dust from the blasted gate was settling, somewhere out on the plateau, but the stinking fire in the courtyard roared ever higher. With a face like a tombstone, Rennic had ordered the guards to stop wasting their own arrows on the downed attackers. Instead, they circled the roiling pyre, jamming their spears wherever they detected movement, whether from mercy or vengeance Chel had no will to judge. He could bear the sight no longer, nor the smell with it, and retreated to the courtyard’s edge, where the breeze kept the worst of the smoke off him.
‘Rennic, the aqueduct …’ Chel coughed, swallowed, wiped at his streaming eyes. ‘Can we send people now?’
Rennic’s eyes were fixed on the broken gateway beyond the fire, and the courtyard beyond it, waiting to see what would come at them next. Those Mawn who had escaped the conflagration had fled back toward the bridge, but any moment he clearly expected to see them return.
‘Our friends of the cloth came and went half a dozen times yesterday, little man. You think this is their only throw today?’ He spat into the rubble. It hissed. ‘We might even see your pal Hurkel this time.’ He turned to Kosh. ‘How fast can you reload that thing?’
The Nort was staring at the pyre, the stench of burning meat swirling around her like a cape. The mask was slung around her neck. Rennic nudged her. ‘Hey, how fast can you reload?’
Her eyes took too long to focus. ‘It … it does … I …’ She took a long breath and blinked hard enough for a trickle of tears to leave the corners of her eyes. ‘It must be rebuilt. It was single-use.’
The lines deepened beneath Rennic’s eyes. He looked around for the guard captain. ‘Get your people back up on the walls. The gap in the bridge is plugged, and another wave of red fuckers is an inevitability. Be ready. Alchemist! We need the black powder, whatever you’ve got. We need to destroy that fucking gangplank on wheels.’
‘There is no more. We have used all I could produce.’
‘Then make more! Now!’
‘I cannot rush the process! The steeping needs a day and a night! More is brewing in the tower.’
‘When? When will it be ready?’
Already her gaze was returning to the snarling fire. ‘Tomorrow, maybe. If all goes … well.’
‘Fucking … what? Tomorrow?’
Chel pushed himself forward, stepping between the Nort and Rennic’s growing fury. ‘It’s all right. We’ll make do, right? Somehow.’
‘Not if a thousand armoured confessors come stomping over that bridge in the intervening,’ Rennic hissed in his ear.
The Nort was looking at her hands, blanched and shaking, still in place on the device’s levers. Tears streaked the dust of her cheeks.
Chel lowered his voice, gave Rennic a warning look. ‘Are you all right, Kosh?’
Grimacing, Rennic affected his best voice of concern. ‘You did it, right? Made them suffer?’
Sobbing, she tore off the mask and ran from the courtyard. Rennic pushed a hand through his matted hair and took a long, foul-smelling breath. ‘Norts.’
‘Is she— Do you think I should—’
‘She’ll be fine, she got what she wanted. Archers! To the walls. Form new barricades. Get eyes on the bridge, and watch for movement. Flaming arrows on that engine if we can. They’ll be coming again, and soon, and this time we’ve got nothing but our hands and our blood.’ Chel had no idea how much they understood, or how seriously they took him, but the house guards were moving in the right direction, at least.
‘Rennic, the aqueduct, the waterways. Can we—?’
He rounded on Chel so suddenly that the raw pain in his eyes burned through undisguised. ‘What’s your fucking headache here, little man? I cannot leave this gate! You find the problem, and you fix it on your own.’ He let out a sharp breath from his nose, his voice dropping. ‘On your own. Like everyone else.’
Chel said nothing, just a soft nod, then turned and pushed his aching body in the direction of the workshops.
***
‘Lemon? Foss?’
The loom chamber stood empty, its once clattering machines standing silent and dark. Chel felt alarm in his gut, hot and piercing. The looms were never unattended. The looms were never still.
‘Wee bear? That you? Did you bring the cavalry?’ Lemon emerged from behind the great silk engines, a half-axe in one hand. Her mania had left her, and her eyes looked red and puffy. She had a pretty impressive bruise forming on one cheek.
‘Not … No. It’s just me. Did you find Foss?’
She nodded, swallowed, gestured to the room’s far corner. ‘He wouldn’t wait. Said someone needed to get down there, make sure … Took that little lass with him, the workshop woman. What do you mean, just you? Where’s the rest? How’m I supposed to guide down an army if we’re one army short of an army?’
‘Things at the gate, there just … there aren’t enough people. Wait— someone’s coming!’
A small, ragged figure emerged blinking into the chamber from a hidden hatch in the corner Lemon had indicated. ‘It’s the chief artificer.’
‘Aye, workshop woman, like I said.’
Chel and Lemon made for the corner, expecting the woman to be babbling with news. Instead she looked up at them expressionless, slack-jawed, her gaze a thousand miles away.
Chel saw the sprays of blood that criss-crossed her. ‘Five hells, are you all right?’
She tilted her head slowly, bringing him into focus, and nodded.
‘What happened? What’s down the—’
Lemon grabbed the woman by her bloodied clothes. ‘Where the fuck is my brother Foss?’
The woman’s loose gaze swivelled her way. She gestured toward the hatch.
‘Come.’
***
The air in the caves was dank and heavy with the stink of ammonia. Chel edged through the darkness, trying to ignore the streaked scrapes of bat-shit along the passageway floor. The artificer led, stepping carefully, insistent that no torch could be permitted. From somewhere overhead came the thump of machinery, the clatter of the water-wheels and their racks of scoops, delving incessantly for water for the city above. The caves echoed with overlapping noise. The passageway itself was smooth, tunnelled, mined; much of the city’s stone had been quarried from beneath it.
The artificer trotted on, her progress nervous but rapid, her thousand-yard stare no impediment to her progress, especially with Lemon nipping at her heels. Chel’s eyes had to be adjusting to the darkness now; side passages glowed blue along their ceilings, luminescence pale and delicate. He stopped, turned. The ceilings were glowing. Thin ropes of light like lambent beads dangled in clumps from the cave roof, swaying gently in the breeze that travelled the passages, almost like they were breathing. They were beautiful.
He went to step forward, but the artificer had doubled back, one hand on his arm. ‘Come.’
‘What is that?’
‘Worms. For looms. Come. This way.’
He gave them one last look, then followed her and Lemon down the passage, an odd, delicate feeling in his chest, a sense that he had seen something secret and wonderful.
***
They almost didn’t recognize him in the darkness. He looked like a formation of rock, standing motionless in the cool blue glow of the caves. He was slick from moisture, gleaming in the low light, but when he turned Chel realized that he was coated in blood.
‘Fossy? You … all right, pal?’
Lemon approached him sidelong, one hand extended as if he were a jittery horse that might spook. Even Foss’s hair was thick with blood, his braids hanging dark and heavy. For a moment, Chel thought he couldn’t see them, couldn’t recognize them, although his lips moved slowly in the half-light. His eyes were closed. Foss was praying.
He opened his eyes, and slow as breaking dawn a grin lit his face. ‘Am I pleased to see you, my friends. Thought I was going to have to see this lot off myself.’
Lemon touched his arm. Her fingers came away stained. ‘Any of this yours, old man?’
He shrugged, slow, tired. ‘Maybe a little.’
‘Aye, well, fun’s over now, Foss-bot. Friend Lemon has arrived to sweep your glory away.’ She looked down the tunnel, hearing at last the clatter and clink of gathering confessors. ‘What’s this lot you’re speaking of?’
‘Confessors. Came in through the water system.’
‘How many?’ She looked down, noting the slumped forms along the passageway floor. ‘Left.’
‘A lot. Guessing they’re making their move, friend, and this is it.’
She nodded. ‘Aye, right. Well, a bad move it is, no mistake.’ She swung an arm around, stretched her back, reached for a short-axe. ‘How about it, wee bear? You up for a scrap?’
Chel looked from one to the other. His shoulder burned like a forest fire, and he was covered in scrapes and bruises. He throbbed, and was quite sure he was exhausted.
‘Do you reckon we can take them?’ he said.
‘Aye, easy.’
Chel looked to the artificer, who had stayed silent to one side. ‘What do you think?’
She looked him up and down, to the blood-smeared Foss and the wild and dirty Lemon, and shook her head an emphatic no.
‘Then I think we need a new plan, don’t you?’ He paused, trying to think, feeling the screaming ache of his muscles, listening to the slosh and tumble of water around the reeking caves. He turned to the artificer. ‘There were quench tanks in the workshops. Does the city’s water come straight up from here, or are there places it rests?’
The artificer blinked in the gloom. ‘Reservoirs, yes. When wind weak, less water comes.’
‘Can we get to any from here?’
Lemon was frowning. ‘What are you thinking, wee bear …? That we … oho, I like where this is going!’
The artificer looked from one to the other, her face blank. ‘Yes, large beneath the workshops.’ She gestured upwards. ‘Above our heads.’
‘And does it have any sort of tap or drain?’
Now she understood. Her face went pale in the gloom, hands already raised and warding. ‘No, no, very bad. Very bad!’
‘All we need is enough to send them packing, flush them out, drench their gear. We just need to buy time before we can get reinforcements down here.’
The hunched little woman cast her gaze around, wild and panicked. ‘Water in caves, very bad! Damage machinery, pumps, flood caves – kill worms!’
‘Worms?’ Lemon looked at Chel and Foss. ‘What’s she talking about?’
‘The glow, friend.’ Foss gestured to the cool light of the dangling bead-strings overhead. ‘This is where all the silk comes from.’
‘Ooh. Eerie.’
‘Listen,’ Chel turned back to the artificer, ‘if we don’t do something, those bastards are going to come at us, through us, and they’re going to take the city. A bit of water damage seems a small price to pay to prevent that, right?’ The woman stared at him, rigid, her head shaking back and forth. He felt anger flaring. ‘Then you have a better idea, right? Anything?’
Still her head shook, and Chel pursed his lips. Too much of his body hurt for this. The sounds of armed men echoed down the passageway, growing suddenly louder.
‘Lemon, reckon you can find this reservoir?’
The Clyde hefted her axe. ‘Oh, aye, you try and stop me.’
***
Despite the artificer’s protestations, the clacking of the remaining water-pumps led them to their quarry. A miniature indoor lake, dark and placid, the termination of half a dozen of the pumps. Other water chains and pumps rose from its surface, carrying water up into the city wherever it was needed. Chel marvelled at the ingenuity, then set about finding some way to drain it.
Lemon found a series of grates cut into the stone, beneath them a narrow passage of sorts, a thin trickle of water running along its floor. She called for help, and between them Foss and Chel managed to lift one of the grates. Lemon dropped inside, then called a moment later. She’d found the sluice gates.
She traced the channels, looking for the water’s outflow. She called for the others and showed them what she’d found: the passage emptied into the tunnel beneath, and from there the water meandered down into the lower caverns, passing, inevitably, through the wide expanse where the confessors gathered.
‘A tweak of them gates, boys, and we turn this trickle into a rush. Flood them out, drive them back out at the viaduct. Drown the slow ones if we’re lucky, send a good number out into the gorge.’
Chel paused. ‘Drown them? I thought we could, you know … Just push them back …’
Lemon gave him an even look. ‘Aye, wee bear, drown them. There’s a cubic fuck-ton of water in this here wee lake, and the rate it exits is going to smash out the tunnels below like a fucken hammer. This will not be a bloodless act.’
Foss put one hand on Chel’s good shoulder. It felt very, very heavy. ‘This is grim arithmetic, my friend: we take the lives beneath of those who would take countless more above. We must make our choice, then make our peace.’
‘I … I can’t do it. It was hard enough trying to destroy their engines without killing anyone.’
‘You need not, friend. But someone must.’
‘Right. Right.’ Chel offered a weak grin, then cocked an ear. ‘Hells, it sounds like they’re on the move.’ Chanting echoed from the passages below.
Lemon nodded, suddenly urgent. ‘Then let’s get out of this tunnel and get those pricks wet.’
‘I thought that wasn’t your kind of thing, Lem.’
‘Oh, shut up, Fossy.’
They made back to the grate as the sound of the chanting grew, undercut by the clink and jingle of the confessors’ armour. ‘Twelve hells, it must be all of them,’ Foss muttered. Lemon went up through the grate first, boosted by Foss below. Chel tried to climb by himself but was glad of the assistance, his shoulder growling at the exertion.
‘Hoy, wee artificer, how’d you go about … Ah, pig-piss, she’s legged it.’
Chel hauled himself up beside her. ‘What?’
‘She’s gone. Probably off scooping worms into her drawers. Fossy, you’d best come up here.’
Foss hadn’t moved. Dark blood was caked across his face and body. ‘Someone needs to open the gates by hand.’
‘Aye, right, there’s going to be a rope or pulley or some kind of mechanism—’
Foss had one ear cocked, but even Chel could hear the growing thump of marching feet from below, the chanting loud enough to discern its refrain. ‘Don’t feel we’ve got the time for hunting around, my friend. These gates look old and … ill-used.’ He began to stomp off down the tunnel toward the gates, water splashing around his boots.
‘Fossy! Fossy!’ She started to go after him, but he ordered her back.
‘Stay up there, friend, I might need a hand up in a moment. Anyway,’ he looked down at the gore that coated him, ‘could use a little cleansing splash.’
Foss reached the gates, dark sheets of stone in the murk. Chel and Lemon peered down from the grate, watching anxiously as he waggled an experimental grip beneath the first. The confessors were almost below them now, their chanting clear and rowdy, confident in their ascension.
Foss crouched before one of the gates, jammed his fingers against the water’s oozing flow, and with a roar began to stand. For a moment, nothing budged, then with a screech of protesting stone the gate began to lift, the dribble thickening to a pour, then a steady rush. Already water was coursing along the passage floor, frothing beneath where Chel and Lemon perched and away into the darkness. Was that an interruption in the chanting that he heard?
Foss roared again, and drove the gate higher, thumping it against its stop. Water rushed between his legs, hard and black, driving him back from the sluice. He seemed happy to follow, the water pouring dark and cold beyond his knees, and he began to wade toward the grate. From below the chanting faltered, obscured by the rush of the flood, those beneath it shouting in surprise and alarm.
Chel saw it from the corner of his eye as Foss waded back to them, a twitch of the black stone gate, a spasm. The water gushed in fury from beneath it, pursuing the big man like vengeance. Then the gate rocked and squeaked, as jets of white foam sprayed from the wall around it. The side of the reservoir was collapsing.
Lemon saw it too. ‘Fossy! Run!’
He was turning, slow, ponderous, sapped by the greedy river at his thighs. Foss watched the gate crack and tear free, great chunks of stone wall in its wake, the wall of white-capped water surging down the passageway toward him. Lemon’s hand was outstretched, Chel’s with it, crying for him to stumble on, to reach up and leap for safety.
Foss looked up, his eyes tired, arms hanging loose and wearied. A slow smile formed on his bloodied lips.
‘Peace,’ he mouthed, his eyes closing, then the torrent took him.
The waters raged for longer than Chel thought possible, as both he and Lemon thrust numbed arms into the foaming spray, again and again until they were soaked and weeping. When finally the deluge passed, the last of the gurgling waters fading into the darkness, the passage beneath lay stark, slick, and empty but for Lemon’s hoarse and echoing screams.