Freedom. But what if freedom caused this disaster in the first place? What if those who argue that the Great Guilds need to control the commons to prevent more dead cities are actually right? Something has to change. The world has to change. Otherwise there will be a lot more cities filled with the dead. If Alain is right about that storm he talks about, every city will end up like this within just a few more years, as the world the Great Guilds have wrapped in chain breaks out and breaks up. But is freedom the answer? Or will it just lead to the same outcome, as every place turns into Tiae anyway? How do I know?
The unnaturally quiet ruins offered no answers. Mari stared out into the darkness for a long time before her eyes drooped shut from exhaustion and she fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, the pale light of dawn was visible over the counter. The sun had risen on their second day in the dead city.
They waited until the light was good enough to illuminate any dangerous spots in the ruins, eating cold food and drinking sparingly for a cheerless breakfast, and then started out again.
Progress was better than the day before, though still not easy. They stumbled across one relatively clear street and were able to follow it for a little way before finding the wreck of an Imperial siege tower lying athwart the road. That forced them back into a warren of alleys and side streets choked with debris, further slowing their progress. They finally stopped before a small plaza, an open space with little wrack of battle littering it. Alain shook his head. “Must we cross this? It is open to easy sight of anyone in those buildings surrounding.”
Mari wiped sweat from her forehead, the moisture smearing the dust on her into a muddy streak on her forearm. “We can’t go back. And I am not going into any of those buildings.”
“No. That would be far too dangerous, even if nothing but the dangers of decay lurked within them.” Alain stared around the plaza. “My foresight reveals nothing at this time, but my instincts tell me we are being watched.”
“Me, too. We’re making plenty of noise getting through this mess. They could track us by that racket alone.” Mari checked her pistol. She needed both hands free while scrambling over the rubble, but wanted to be sure she could get the weapon out fast if needed. “Let’s go.”
They made it across the plaza without incident, even though the blank faces of the surrounding buildings watched Mari and Alain with silent menace. Mari breathed a sigh of relief as they entered the next street, where piles of debris formed an irregular series of barricades which needed to be climbed over. They were about halfway down that street and crossing a small open area between obstructions when a rock fell ahead of them, rolling down a long slope formed by the collapse of one side of a building. Alain froze. Mari yanked out her pistol and searched the wrecked buildings rising in one or two crumbling stories around them. “What is it?” she asked him.
Alain pointed. A man was visible ahead, standing in shadow between two piles of debris. All three of them stood still, the man silent and motionless, Alain and Mari watching him and searching their surroundings for others.
Finally, the man moved, stepping into the light. Mari fought down a shudder of revulsion. It was impossible to tell how old he was because his body and hair were caked with filth. He wore a ragged strip of fabric as a sort of loincloth, crude-looking sandals on his feet, and on his chest the type of breastplate Imperial centurions had worn more than century ago. Looking every day of its age, the pitted and corroded breastplate also sported a large hole which could have been made by either an antique crossbow bolt or a Mechanic bullet.
Mari took in all that in a moment, focusing on the broken sword the man held in one hand. She pulled back the slide of her pistol to load a round, clicked off the safety, then leveled her pistol at him while steadying it with both hands, hoping that the process was sufficiently threatening to deter the man and any unseen companions he had. “Stop right there, unless you want that armor to get another hole in it.”
The man stopped, then opened his mouth in what could have been a smile but wasn’t, the gesture revealing that a lot of teeth were missing. “Give up or fight. Don’t matter to me. You fight, we kill you slower.” His accent was archaic, the words slurred from sloppy pronunciation.
“We?” Alain asked.
The man gave a low, shrill whistle. There was a stirring of the rubble on all sides, and others came into view, each wearing a combination of badly aged cast-off clothing and pieces of armor, and each carrying a weapon in various stages of corrosion or breakage.
Mari shook her head, hoping her voice would remain steady, her weapon staying fixed on the leader. “I’ve got enough bullets in this Mechanic weapon to kill every one of you. Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.”
The man seemed amused, showing another gap-toothed smile, and Mari realized the expression was actually more like the snarl of a wolf. “We already dead, girl. Didn’t ya know? Dead born to the dead. Emperor say so.” He spat to one side. “What can you do?”
“Right now you may be officially dead, but you’re not really dead,” Mari replied. “I can change that.” The man took a step closer. Aiming carefully, her weapon steadied in both hands, Mari fired at the battered wall next to the man. The sound of the shot was amplified by the small hollow they were in, echoing repeatedly off the broken ruins to all sides. A chunk of the wall shattered, spraying the man with fragments. “I missed you on purpose. That was a warning. The next shot will blow your head off.”
The man bared what teeth he had, the snarl fiercer, looking up and to one side. Mari kept her eyes and her pistol sights on the leader as Alain followed the gesture. She felt a sense of warmth that told her Alain was building a ball of heat in one hand.
There was a crack of breaking masonry, then Alain spoke with a Mage’s total calmness. “A man in a broken window, with a short spear. Both man and window are now gone. You deal with a Mage, commons. Depart or die.”
Mari took a deep breath, keeping her weapon sighted on the leader. To her own surprise her voice remained firm. “You heard my Mage. Try anything else and I’ll kill you where you stand.”
The leader shook his head. “I already dead, woman.” He raised the broken sword and lunged forward. Mari could hear sounds all around as his followers also charged.
Her mind numb, Mari lowered her sights to make sure they were centered on the leader’s breastplate and fired. He staggered, swaying to one side, then got his feet under him again and tried to keep coming. Mari fired again, her shot this time cracking his ancient breastplate in half as he dropped to the dusty rubble. She could hear Alain hurling fire to her right, so she spun left, firing again as another man scrambled toward them. The shot missed but she got off another immediately, this one knocking him down. Pivoting again, Mari lined up on a third man and put a bullet in his belly. He was still screaming when she fired three times at a fourth enemy, a woman who was very close and diving with a rusty dagger at Alain’s back. The hits drove the woman back and to the side, to fall like a broken doll.
Mari couldn’t see any other targets to the left so she spun back to the right, checking each man she had already dropped. The wounded man seemed unable to get up, but picked up a broken brick and heaved it at her as she turned. Mari flinched as the brick hit her shoulder, then closed her mind to what she was doing and fired one more time.