“I’m sorry,” Lizanne said. “But we can leave now.”
He frowned at her, utterly baffled. “How?”
“She’s gone. This is your mind and your trance. Just decide to wake up.”
Tinkerer’s brow smoothed, eyes sliding from her face as he lost himself in momentary calculation. “Oh,” he said. “Very well.”
Lizanne blinked and found herself in darkness once again, though the moonlight streaming through the window revealed her to be back in Tinkerer’s infirmary room. The lack of light was puzzling, however, as was the chill in the air which she assumed resulted from the fact that the window was open. She saw Makario slumped at the pianola and began to speak his name, then stopped when she saw something dark dripping over the keys. Tearing her gaze away she scanned the room, coming to a halt at the sight of Dr. Weygrand’s body lying close to the door.
“Awake at last,” Mr. Lockbar said, rising from the shadows beneath the window, his knife gleaming bright in the moonlight. “They wanted you to know,” he explained before leaping towards her, blade outstretched.
CHAPTER 33
Sirus
A cluster of old people huddled together beneath the tower of their village temple. It was an old Oracular church long since converted to the Imperial cult, the tower crowned by a bronze bust of Emperor Caranis. The elderly villagers, about twenty in all, displayed mixed reactions to their imminent fate. Some kept their gaze firmly on the rain-muddied ground. Others stared at Sirus and the other Spoiled in unabashed defiance whilst a few cast repeated glances at the bust of the recently dead Emperor above, as if even now he possessed some divine power of deliverance.
“This is all?” Sirus asked Forest Spear.
“Every house is empty,” the tribal reported. “We found cart-tracks leading to the west, but they’re a few days old. Just like the others.”
It had been the same for the past week. The White’s host had enjoyed a period of success early in the march, capturing a string of towns and villages and swelling their ranks in the process. Veilmist calculated the daily recruitment tally at over eight thousand and Catheline communicated the White’s satisfaction to the entire army. But it hadn’t lasted.
The farther south they marched the farther news of their coming travelled. At first the villages were only half-deserted, the inhabitants caught in the midst of their panicked flight. Later they found a large town empty of all but the sick and the old but, with the aid of the Reds, had managed to pursue and capture the bulk of the populace a few miles to the south-west. It had been a messy business, the yield of recruits limited thanks to the Reds, who had been permitted a bout of indulgent slaughter. By the time the first Spoiled battalions arrived fully half the adults and most of the children were dead, the corpses scattered about the country-side in ugly, half-eaten mounds as the Reds squawked and gorged themselves.
They require rewards too, Catheline explained in response to Sirus’s frustrated query. For a drake, flesh is the spoil of victory.
Since then every village had been like this one, the people fled so far and fast that any attempt to capture them would entail an unacceptable delay. All that remained were those too old or infirm to run.
“Leave them for the drakes?” Forest Spear asked, flicking his war-club at the huddle of old people.
Kinder to kill them, Sirus thought. One bullet each to the head. Left alive the Greens would most likely claim them, or worse, the White’s hideous brood of juveniles might see them as a source of amusement.
He began to issue the order then stopped as one of the old people stepped forward, a tall man in threadbare clothing but possessed of a sturdy bearing despite his age. Sirus suspected the man had once been a soldier, probably a sergeant judging by the volume in his voice as he cried out, “Monsters!” before bending to retrieve a stone from the muddy ground. “Filthy, demon monsters!” he yelled, wrinkled face red with fury as he threw the stone at Sirus. He ducked and it sailed harmlessly overhead, the old man immediately crouching to search the ground for another missile.
Don’t, Sirus commanded as Forest Spear unslung his rifle.
Unable to find a stone, the old man settled for a handful of mud, casting it at Sirus with impressive aim. It struck him squarely on the breast of the Corvantine general’s tunic Catheline insisted he wear. The old man straightened from the throw, gnarled fists bunched as he glowered in defiance. It was clear that he expected a swift death. Sirus returned his stare, unmoving and expressionless. The old soldier let out a snarl and quickly bent to fill both his fists with more mud, hurling it at Sirus then immediately crouching for more ammunition. Sirus allowed the missiles to strike him on the head and shoulder, doing and saying nothing.
Apparently emboldened by this display, and the lack of reaction from Sirus or the other Spoiled, a few of the old man’s companions began to join in his assault. Two old women, one so bent and crook-legged she had to hobble forward with the aid of a stick, scraped mud and stones from the ground and hurled it at the impassive monsters, accompanied by a torrent of colourful insults.
“Demon shit-eaters!”
“Cock-sucking freaks!”
Soon what had been a cowed and miserable huddle had become an enraged mob, the air filled with arcing mud and stones that rained down on the immobile Spoiled. Sirus held them in place, forbidding retaliation as the barrage continued. He felt a range of emotions from his fellow Spoiled, from anger and frustration to cruel amusement. But there was also grudging admiration, even from Forest Spear and a few of the other tribals. Normally they viewed the un-Spoiled with a mixture of contempt and indifference, now it appeared they were capable of more feeling than he suspected.
He allowed the assault to continue, wondering how long it might take for these old folk to exhaust themselves as his uniform became increasingly caked in mud. The question proved moot, however, when a dark-winged shadow swept over the village. The barrage instantly stopped, the mob’s defiance vanished as all eyes turned upwards, wide and bright with terror. All eyes except those of the old soldier.
“Kill me, you fucker!” he raged as the shadow swept over them once again, both fists raised to the sky. “Go on kill me, if you got the balls!”
Catheline’s half-amused, half-baffled query slipped into Sirus’s mind. What is this? He looked up to see her perched on the back of Katarias, the Red’s wings blurring as he hovered fifty yards above.
An oddly irrational display, he replied. You know I can’t help but be curious.
Be curious later.
Katarias stilled his wings and went into a dive, streaking down to unleash a torrent of fire that consumed first the old soldier and then his terrified companions. The fire was so swift and intense none had a chance to run and soon a pile of twisted, blackened corpses lay beneath the temple tower.
Come, Catheline ordered as Katarias bore her towards the edge of the village. I have something to show you.
It was a drake memory and therefore not instantly comprehensible. Soon, however, Sirus’s mind shifted to accommodate the difference in perception and what had been a blur of smudged colours became a jungle viewed from above.