Blightcross: A Novel (34 page)

“I thought there was housing in the refinery complex,” Alim said. “I've seen them.”

Vasi rolled her eyes. “Most of the workers do not last long here. If you stay for two years, you can live in the proper housing. Transients and new workers must stay at these camps.” She gestured to the ceiling, glancing at Capra. “We should hurry into the open air, eh?”

“Please,” Capra said.

“I will go first.” Dannac muscled through them and reached for the trap door release. “Provided they have not built a boiler or a pipeline on top of this exit.”

The door groaned and greasy dust rained on them. There was a rush of air, and the soft red sunlight splashed into the chamber.

Along with this fresh air and light came the sounds of men hollering, women screaming, and other inhuman, sibilant whispers.

And the most tremendous booms and cracks Capra had ever heard.

“It's like an artillery division,” Alim said. “Only louder.”

Dannac pushed his arm through first, then tentatively peered over the edge. A second later, he ducked inside again. “The camps are in a panic. Shadows are everywhere. And there is something fighting them, now.”

“What?” Capra asked.

“Giants.”

“Impossible.”

Vasi pushed to the ladder. “How can they have returned?”

Now she felt on the outside of a joke that the whole class understood. “Is that a bad thing?”

“I would say it means we are saved,” Dannac said. He then hoisted himself above ground. Vasi followed.

For a flash—the time it took for her mind to grasp the words—Capra was elated at the thought. But the feeling did not last. “I'll believe that when I see it.”

So she came into the open air, both relieved and horrified. She dodged bits of fire, and stepped around writhing, charred men. She readied her knife, but wondered if it would be of any use against the wild men thrashing about and attacking both random people and inanimate objects.

Then she heard a roar and a rumble carried through the dirt under her. She peered through the smoke at a dozen or so hulking forms approaching the refinery's sprawl. A chorus of inhuman screeching pierced through the drone of the machines, and she could also make out the sound of crumbling brick.

Giants.

She caught up to Vasi and kept close. Vasi could keep them all safe, couldn't she? The giants must be an apparition—something conjured by magic. They could not be real.

“Cowering behind an Ehzeri,” Alim said.

She waved her little knife. “Look—look what I have. It's all I have, and see those bloody hulks breathing fire and smoke and swatting down the buildings? They don't seem to care who they kill. So yes, I'm going to hide right behind this sorceress because she's the only one here who can fight these things.”

Vasi scowled. “‘She' is also just a human, like these others who are burning to death.”

With each thundering step, the giants strode the length of a city block. Capra brought her arms to cover her head and sidestepped the rain of embers floating to the ground. Bits of glowing fire fluttered around like burning ash in a wildfire.

But somehow, fighting a wildfire with the army seemed like a better idea than what they were doing.

More than the flyaway embers, Capra also sidestepped a man whose gnarled club bristled with rusty nails. She tensed and prepared to kill him, but he sailed past and began to attack another worker.

“What the...”

“They've chosen sides,” Vasi said.

“What?”

Vasi guided them behind a wooden shack. Before she could speak, Dannac drew his hand-cannon and said, “They must fight. And those who were not corrupted by the shadows have decided to side with the giants.”

“Why isn't anyone running?” Capra glanced past the wall and shook her head at the men, women, and children clashing among derelict shelters and rusty barrels.

“Do you not feel the draw? I can hear the giants. They want all of this gone, they want a return to the jungles, and they will destroy anyone who does not share this vision.”

She watched his face. “And do you share this vision, Dannac?”

“Right now, we are better off fighting on the side of the giants. At least they cannot take human form and lie to us.”

“He has a point,” Alim said.

Capra flailed in frustration. “Who said we were fighting anything?”

“Look around you, Jorassian. Even if we get Helverliss and Rovan out of the tower, all we would be doing is moving them into more immediate danger. At least they are safe for the moment.”

“No, we have to get into the refinery.”

Everyone went quiet and stared at Dannac.

“But you just said we should fight,” Capra said.

He turned away and massaged his temples. What was his problem, and why now? The giants would only advance, and the shadows would only become more desperate and deceptive.

She grabbed a handful of his jacket and pulled him close. “What's going on, Dannac? Look around you. Now is not the time.”

“I have to go into the refinery. Otherwise they will kill me.” He lowered his voice. “Arnhas. The Bhagovan Republic, that is.”

“What has this to do with them?”

He tapped his jewel. “This. They gave me this, they gave back my sight. Now I am their spy.”

“What?”

“It is complicated and the details don't matter. I had the misfortune of meeting with one of my handlers the other day. He has set my eye to capture images.”

“They want you to spy for them? At a time like this?” Such a tool would be invaluable to a lot of people... especially her own.

“They want to take advantage of the situation.”

A swarm of flaming pellets peppered the shack, and she slid down to her knees. “Then refuse to do it. They can't make you.”

“Like I said, they can. Yaz can order the eye to kill me.” He scowled at a passing group where each human walked alongside one of the shadows. Now the things just floated along, apparently no longer needing to keep up the appearance of walking. “These shadows need to be kept in check, though.”

“Vasi isn't coming into the tower with us... maybe she could use a hand down here.”

“I know what you're thinking. But I need to capture the inside of the refinery for Yaz.” He went silent for a moment.

It would be a standard maneuver for them were it not for Dannac's predicament. She would have just slipped inside the building in question while he took care of the heavy lifting, fistfights, and in a few cases, religious debates. He was good for all that. But if he were to stay behind and fight the shadows with Vasi, she would be left alone with Alim...

Maybe his predicament wasn't so bad after all.

Dannac snapped his fingers. She was about to question him when he reached to his forehead and pulled free the jewel. Left behind was a brass socket, and at the bottom of this glistened a host of tiny jewels embedded into the metal. He handed the jewel to her, but she could only cringe and back away.

“Take it with you,” he said. His natural eyes twitched.

“Are you mad?”

He lowered his weapon at a passing shadow, fired. The round did pass through his target, but that wasn't the point.

“How?”

“About all I can see with my right eye are shadows. Vasi can help me with everything else.” He pressed the jewel into her hand. “Make sure you give this thing a proper view.” He looked to the tower. “And if you get the chance, give me an overhead look at the battle. It will help us organize these fighters.”

She held it gingerly, as though it were an eye made of flesh. “You can still see through it when it's detached from your head?”

“Flashes of images every few seconds. Enough to gain a decent picture of the battle.” He turned to Alim. “And enough to know if your partner here is trustworthy. If you betray us now, Valoii, I will know. And I will kill you.”

“She is still Valoii, Dannac. She's as trustworthy as I am. Take that however you wish.”

Capra ignored the banter. Now it was real, not just a plan that was forever going to happen “sometime later”, and thus was nothing to worry about.

The clock awaited.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Capra struggled to keep up with Alim. It wasn't the burning lungs holding her back, but the clashing blades and crazed cries. She watched the men slashing at each other, gouging out one another's eyes, and her muscles tensed in anticipation.

Finally, Alim looked back and said, “Don't worry about them.” He passed one of the corrupted workers as if the depraved battle were a figment. “We haven't chosen a side. I don't think they'll be interested in us until we try to stop them.” And here, he stepped straight into the path of a shadow man, and Capra's breath caught in her throat until the shadow simply glided on towards the fray.

It sort of made sense, but she still couldn't keep herself from glancing over her shoulder and maintaining a hyper-vigilant state.

The screams and clashes and booms from the huge machine's cannons all blended into a soup of sound. Her throat was irritated and seemed about the diameter of a wheat stalk, as her sprint forced hot smoky air into her. It was as though they were in the Blacksmith's furnace, consumed by divine fires with all of the other sinners. Burned as fuel for the righteous, for there was work to finish.

She caught the eye of a teenaged girl in singed rags. The girl held a length of rusted pipe and made challenging gestures to the shadow man standing near her. In her eyes Capra saw a glow of leaping flame. Was it from within, or just a reflection of the fires?

The girl began a chant—guttural, almost animal. Behind, hundreds repeated her words at a steady cadence.

Capra shoved Alim forward, and the two bolted from the scene. Neither of them had experienced anything so strange in their service.

“What in the holy forges was all of that?” she asked, once they reached the refinery gates.

“Now you're using Ehzeri expletives. Nice, Capra.”

She went through the open gate and prodded a body clad in blue leather armour. She picked from the dead man's belt a hand-cannon and passed it to Alim. “I don't know how to use this, and I don't want to know.”

The chanting persisted in her mind. She wanted to go back and listen more, to understand it. She stood there, dazed, staring at the clock tower's base.

Why had she come here?

Shadows were trying to create an unnatural world. She ought to be back in the fray, killing the shadows and establishing the rule of nature once again—

“Capra!”

“Huh?”

“I said, where is this mechanic's entrance you mentioned?”

She tried to penetrate the chanting reverberating in her head to retrieve the schematic she had memorized. “Don't you hear it, Alim?”

“Hear what?”

“The chanting.”

“In the distance, yes. It sounds awful.”

For an instant it seemed so clear. He didn't hear it because he had already been corrupted by the shadows. And the only logical thing to do then would be to kill him, to kill him with fire...

She pinched herself and tried to block the strange thoughts. “The entrance is around this side. I'll take point, since you're the one with the cannon.” She glanced over her shoulder. “If I can really trust you.”

“We don't have time for this.”

They really didn't, and so Capra cut through the fog in her memory and remembered exactly the distance from the front gate to the small door set into the side of the tower. Next to the tower stood the monstrosity of the refinery itself. Pipes, bulbous structures, smokestacks, all of it glowing under the fading sun like a palace of iron, and Capra found herself examining these strange buildings more than the spectacle of the clock tower.

She tugged on it to no avail. She threw her pack to the ground and rummaged through it for the right tool.

“Might as well try it out,” Alim said.

She barely had time to slip out of the way before Alim trained the cannon on the door. There was a loud crack, and a hail of wood splinters, and a squeal as the door flung open.

They ducked under the low frame and entered the heart of the clock. The air was thick and smelled of oil. They didn't escape the noise, either, as the clattering gears more than made up for their distance from the chaos outside.

At the centre of the room, a ring of shafts rose from below the floor. These terminated in cogs, which then drove crown gears. It seemed simple enough. But when she looked up, the shafts and gears bloomed into a rising, vine-like assembly of man-sized gears.

She threw down her pack and unfolded the suit she had bought. Alim glared at her, one eye squinting.

“Well, you have to think ahead, Alim.” She gestured to the gears above and began to unbutton her blouse. “It's a deathtrap. You're going to have to dispense with some of your finery, soldier.”

“I will not.”

Now nude from the waist up, she stuffed the shirt into the pack, even though they likely would not come back to retrieve any of it.

She peeled off the rest of her clothes and began to step into the leather suit. “Come on, then. Self-consciousness is a luxury, remember? You know better than to put your own embarrassment ahead of the survival of your people.”

“These are not my people,” he said, and began to unbutton his shirt. Every few seconds, his eyes drifted towards Capra struggling into her leather.

“Might as well be.” She at last thrust her arms in, and tightened the laces. “What's the matter now?”

“Nothing.”

“It's the suit, isn't it? Look, I've been surviving by breaking into things and being where people least want me. I've learned a few things. This was one of them.” She then clasped her armband back to her arm, and plaited her hair as tightly as possible.

The jar of oil came next. “Be quick and rub this all over me. It'll be a tight fit up there.”