Assailed from above and below, the swarm of Reds split apart, one group banking away to the east whilst the other furiously beat their wings to gain more height, desperate to get at the aircraft. Lizanne concentrated on the other group, watching it split apart twice more, each subdivision banking away. Trying to disperse our fire, she realised. Come at us from all sides at once. They had only a few moments’ respite before the storm descended.
“It’s time!” she called out, rising to her feet and pointing at the southern end of the pass. “Make for the pick-up point!”
Most needed no encouragement, the Blood-blessed immediately refreshing their Green to sprint and leap away with the pirates following as fast as they could. But a few stayed, mostly Varestians but also a couple of Blood-blessed. “Miss Blood?” one of them asked, a middle-aged man who cast repeated nervous glances at the sky.
Lizanne resisted the urge to snap, “Don’t call me that!” and forced a smile instead. “Rear guard,” she told him, gesturing towards the south. “I’ll be along. Now go!”
She watched them flee then turned back to gauge the progress of the White’s army. The Grand Cut was thick with Greens and Spoiled all the way to the promontory where she stood, the promontory which their explosives had deliberately failed to send tumbling into the pass. However, the as yet unexploded second batch contained more than enough fire-power to bring it down. Lizanne quickly spotted the detonator positioned in a shallow crevice near by and started towards it, then stopped at a challenging squawk from above. Seeing a Red separate from the main pack to dive towards her, she swiftly slotted a Redball into the Smoker and blew it out of the sky at a distance of fifty yards.
Turning back to the detonator she rushed towards it and crouched in the shadowed confines of the crevice. Reaching into the pocket of her overalls she extracted the item so carefully crafted by Madame Hakugen’s theatrically experienced employee. Fashioned mostly from congealed glue and rubber Lizanne, with her extensive experience of disguises, had initially been sceptical of its efficacy. But, upon trying it out she had been reassured by Tekela’s assertion that she looked “utterly ghastly.” Pressing it to her face, she took a bottle of pig’s blood from her other pocket and emptied it over her head. It was thick with coagulants and possessed of a truly appalling smell, but she needed it to complete the disguise.
A fresh chorus of drake screams told her she was out of time and she reached for the detonator, one hand on the lever whilst the other pressed the second button on the Spider to flood her veins with all the remaining Green. She pushed the detonator’s lever then clamped her hands over her ears, shutting her eyes tight. A bare second later the explosives went off, Lizanne finding herself lifted clear of the mountain side by the blast. She spread her limbs to stabilise herself as she tumbled, grit-filled air whipping past as she plummeted into the pass.
She didn’t need to feign unconsciousness. Her attempt to slide down the flank of the dislodged promontory to the floor of the pass went well at first, but the huge slab of rock contrived to break apart upon connecting with the ground, leaving her tumbling in a cloud of dust. Something hard slammed into her back, possessed of enough force to cause serious injury if not for the copious Green in her system. Lizanne attempted to angle her feet towards the ground, intending to roll with the impact and hopefully prevent any fractures, but another something cracked against the side of her head and she found herself falling into a vast pool of utter blackness.
She came to atop a pile of corpses, blinking into the dull-eyed stare of a dead Green only inches from her face. It lay across an equally dead Spoiled, a woman about Lizanne’s own age with her neck twisted at an impossible angle. Looking around through bleary eyes Lizanne saw that the bodies were all stacked against the newly created wall of rock spanning the width of the Grand Cut. Those not buried by the avalanche had evidently piled up in front of it, crushing themselves to death in the process.
Lizanne tried to raise herself, which had the effect of dislodging many of the bodies, causing the pile to collapse. She rolled with the slack, lifeless forms, coming to rest on the floor of the pass where she lay, drawing in slow even breaths in an attempt to recover her senses.
It took several minutes to get to her feet, the world seeming to tilt and spin around her. When she finally stood up she found herself confronted by a Spoiled, a tall male in a ragged Protectorate uniform regarding her with his scaled brows formed into a curious frown. She hoped he saw a fellow Spoiled, albeit one with a mass of blood concealing her deformed features, not all of it pig’s blood judging by the warm trickle tracing from the back of her head. Lizanne just stared back at the Spoiled for a brief interval then staggered away in apparent confusion. She could feel his eyes on her and could only hope he put her failure to communicate down to her head injury.
The pass was full of Spoiled soldiery, and some drakes, many injured and all stumbling around in a directionless stupor. Unsure of how long this helpful state of confusion might last, Lizanne kept staggering towards the northern end of the Cut, her pace deliberately slow. She fell several times during the journey, not always of her own volition as her befuddled brain saw fit to randomly deny her control of her legs. If any of the other Spoiled afforded her an unduly long gaze she would fall and remain immobile until they lost interest.
The Spoiled began to regain a sense of order once she came to the mouth of the pass, their confusion slipping away as they stiffened into a semblance of military bearing and began to form companies. Hoping her grievous wound would explain her immunity to this resurgence of discipline, Lizanne continued to stumble and collapse her way clear of the Grand Cut, pausing at the sight of the huge camp only a few hundred yards away.
Where would it be? she wondered, gaze tracking over the neat rows of tents. The answer proved obvious and unmistakable. Rising in the centre of the camp was a very large winged shape, pale in the fading pall of dust. The White. She had only seen it before in Clay’s shared memories and found the experience of viewing it in the flesh both unnerving and irresistible. It’s right there. Well within range.
The temptation to slip back into the trance was strong. Tell Tekela to launch now. Finish this. But she held off. It could just fly away. You came for the crystal. Stick to the mission.
She staggered on, joining a thin stream of wounded Spoiled making a slow progress to the camp. They were all dazed and bleeding like her and thankfully in no condition to attempt communication. She kept to the rear of the group, head lowered as she moved in a stumbling shuffle. The fuzziness in her head finally started to fade as they entered the camp. It was mostly deserted apart from a few Spoiled, all of whom were rushing to form companies and paid the group of wounded no attention.
She had expected the wounded to report to some kind of medical tent but they all began to peel off from the group. She saw one Spoiled, a large man wearing a Corvantine constable’s hat and cradling an obviously broken arm, stagger into one of the tents and lay down on the bedroll within. Before moving on she saw him close his eyes and fall asleep. One by one the other Spoiled followed suit until she found herself alone but for two others.
Lizanne began to drop back, intending to find an empty tent to hide in until they moved on, but the pair came to a sudden halt and turned to face her, eyes narrowed in suspicious scrutiny. They were both female, one with a spectacular head injury deep enough for Lizanne to make out the white bone of her skull through the gore. The other appeared to have only a broken wrist and was consequently much more alert. From the way their brows twitched she realised they were attempting to communicate and knew she had only seconds to act.