But she’d taken the bullet that struck her jaw and blown it back out the very same gun that had shot her. So, when her jaw cramped this time, instead of her usual misery, Venera had a flash of memory: the morning gun going off with a tremendous explosion in her hands, bucking and kicking and sending her flying backward into the Lirisians. She had no idea what the feeling accompanying that had been, but she liked it.
So she grinned crookedly and stood up. Dusting herself off, she said with dignity, “I am Amandera Thrace-Guiles, and this is Jacoby Sarto of the Spyre Council. We need to talk to your commanders.”
“You have a reputation for being foolhardy,” said the army commander, his gray mustaches waggling. “But that was ridiculous.”
It turned out that they’d nearly overshot both Sacrus and Council Alliance positions. Luckily, several hundred pairs of eyes had tracked their progress across the rolled-up sky of Spyre and it was her army that had gotten to Venera and Jacoby first. Sarto didn’t seem too upset about the outcome, which was telling. What was even more significant was that everyone was calling her “Lady Thrace-Guiles,” which meant that word of her deceptions hadn’t made it out of Liris. Here, Venera was still a respected leader.
She preened at the commander’s backhanded compliment. He stood with his back to a brick wall, a swaying lamp nodding shadows across the buttons of his jacket. Aides and colonels bustled about, some shoving little counters across the map board, others reading or writing dispatches.
Venera smelled engine oil and wet cement. The alliance army had set up its headquarters in a preservationist roundhouse about a mile from Liris; these walls were thick enough to stop anything Sacrus had so far fired. For the first time in days, Venera felt a little safe.
“I wouldn’t have had to be foolhardy if the situation weren’t so dire,” she said. It was tempting to upbraid this man for hesitating to send his forces to relieve Liris; but Venera found herself uninterested anymore in taking such familiar pleasures. She merely said, “Tell me what’s been happening out here.”
The commander leaned over the board and began pointing at the little wooden counters. “There’ve been engagements all across Greater Spyre,” he said. “Sacrus has won most of them.”
“So what are they doing? Conquering countries?”
“In one or two cases, yes. Mostly they’ve been cutting the preservationist’s railway lines. And they’ve taken or severed all the elevator cables.”
“Severed?” Even to an outsider like her this was a startling development.
One of the aides shrugged. “Easy enough to do. They just use them for target practice—except for the ones at the edge of the world, like Liris. The winds around those lines deflect the bullets.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t they just use more high-powered guns on them?” The aide shook his head.
“Ancient treaty. Places limits on muzzle velocities. It’s to prevent accidental punctures of the world’s skin.”
“—Not significant, anyway,” said the commander with an impatient gesture. “The war will be decided here on Greater Spyre. The city will just have to wait it out.”
“No, it can’t wait,” she said. “That’s what this is all about. Not the city, but the docks.”
“The docks?” The commander stared at her. “That’s the last thing we’re going to worry about.”
“I know, and Sacrus is counting on that.” She glared at him. “Everything that’s happening down here is a diversion from their real target. Everything except…” She nodded at Liris.
Now they were looking at each other with faintly embarrassed unease. “Lady Thrace-Guiles,” said the commander, “war is a very particular art. Perhaps you should leave such details to those who’ve made it their careers.”
Venera opened her mouth to yell at him, thought better, and took a deep breath instead. “Can we at least be agreed that we need to break Sacrus’s hold on Liris?”
“Yes,” he said with a vigorous nod. “We need to ensure the safety of our leadership. For that purpose,” he pointed at the table, “I am advocating a direct assault along the innermost wall.”
A moment of great temptation made Venera hesitate. The commander was proposing to go straight for the walls and leave the group trapped at the world’s edge to its fate. He didn’t know that his objective was actually there. They’d made themselves her enemies and Venera could just… forget to tell him. Leave Guinevera and the others to Sacrus’s mercy now that she had the army.
She couldn’t claim not to have known, though, unless the Lirisians went along with it. And she was tired of deceptions. She sighed and said, “Liris is a critical objective, yes, but the rest of our leadership is actually trapped with the Lirisian army at the edge of the world.” There were startled looks up and down the table. “Yes—Master Thinblood, Principe Guinevera, and Pamela Anseratte, among others, are among those pinned down in the hurricane zone.”
The commander frowned down at the map. On it, Liris was a square encircled by red wooden tokens representing Sacrus’s army. This circle squashed a knot of blue tokens against the bottom edge of the map: the Lirisian army, trapped at the edge of the world. Left of the encirclement was a no-man’s land of tough brush that had so far resisted burning. Left of that, the preservationist siding and army encampment where they now stood.
“This is a problem,” said the commander. He thought for a moment, then said, “There are certain snakes that coil around their victims and choke them to death.” She raised an eyebrow, but he continued, “One of their characteristics, so I’ve been told, is that if you try to remove them they tighten their grip. Right now Sacrus has both Liris and our leaders in its coils, and if we try to break through to one they will simply strangle the other.”
To relieve the Lirisian army, they would have to force a wedge under Liris, with the edge of the world at their right side. To do this they would trade off their ability to threaten Sacrus along the inner sides of Liris—freeing those troops up to assault the walls of Liris. Conversely, the best way to relieve Liris would be to come at it from the top, which meant swinging the army away from the world’s edge—thus giving Sacrus a free hand against the trapped force.
Venera examined the map. “We have to fool them into making the wrong choice,” she said.
“Yes, but how are we going to do that?” He shook his head. “Even if we did, they can maneuver just as fast as we can. They have less ground to cover than we do to redeploy their forces.”
“As to how we’ll fool the snake into uncoiling,” she said, “it helps to have your own snake to consult with.” She turned and waved to some figures standing a few yards away. Jacoby Sarto emerged from the shadows; he was a silhouette against Klieg lights that pinioned a pair of hulking locomotives in the center of the roundhouse. He was accompanied by two armed soldiers and a member of Bryce’s underground.
The commander bowed to Sarto, but then said, “I’m afraid we cannot trust this man. He is of the enemy.”
“Lord Sarto has seen the light,” said Venera. “He has agreed to help us.”
“Pah!” The commander sneered. “Sacrus are masters of deception. How can we trust him?”
“The politics are complex,” she said. “But we have very good reasons to trust him. I do. That is why I brought him.”
There were more glances thrown between the colonels and the aides. The commander twitched a frown for just a moment, then said, “No—I understand the dilemma we’re in, but my sovereign and commanding officer is Principe Guinevera, and he’s in danger. Politically, saving our leadership has to be the priority. I’ll not countenance any plan that weakens our chance of doing that.”