Blightcross: A Novel (39 page)

The pressure at her neck eased, and she sighed. The hint was vague enough to give them time, yet from the way Alim stared into the distance and whispered to himself, it could be enough to satisfy the shadows.

He began a low, perverse laugh that rippled against her body. Convulsions of a strange pleasure.

“That is all we need. Thank you.” He shoved Capra across the room and backed out of the museum, cannon trained on her.

“Alim, wait!”

“It's no use, Capra. He's been taken.”

“Then why would he let us live?”

Helverliss groaned and gestured to the chains, and she darted back to his side to release them.

“He let us live because contrary to my assumption, he, or the shadows, were intelligent enough to make use of my nebulous hint. It matters not whether we live or die once they disable Sevari's war machine.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

From the brief view he had glimpsed thanks to Capra's climb up the side of the tower, Dannac estimated that their numbers lay between two and three hundred. At the moment, they all cowered behind the fence between the worker's shanty town and the refinery.

“It's as if we do not exist to them,” Vasi said, eyes fixed upon the two warring factions.

“It is only a matter of time before one side wins and destroys us.” Dannac faced his crowd, most of which accepted him as the grease-streaked regiment's commander. “I have seen images from above. If we all gather—”

Something exploded near the fence, and a tidal wave of dirt soaked them all.

He brushed dirt from his face and said, “If we all gather around the big war-engine, we can better attack the shadow forces.”

The crowd murmured.

“They do not appear to agree,” Vasi told him.

“Their voices tell me enough.” He rested a foot on a busted pallet. “I know you all are sceptical about the machine, but it is our only advantage. It can protect us, equalize the fight. The shadows have superior numbers.”

A man holding two hand-cannons spoke. “And what then? How will we take it down and stop the giants and their forces?”

“It will take a balancing act. We will pare down the shadow men's numbers, then switch to the giants to equalize them. We will do this until both forces have been defeated, just like in the legend.”

“There are no endless holes to oblivion, no traps this time!” called out another. “How will we bury them like in the legend?”

“This is what we have to deal with. As long as we are careful in how much attention we draw from the giants, we should be able to blend in and destroy them from the inside.”

A few in the front brandished halberds and broken pipes and boards bristling with nails, and appeared eager to drop into the fray. Other than that, they were a contingent of tired, blackened faces, and there was much moaning.

Dannac clambered up a pile of brick and twisted fencing. “Look around you. These things don't moan, they don't tire. All they do is destroy. We may be the last chance this city has of surviving.” He surveyed the crowd, finding them still rather uninspired. “Most of you are Ehzeri. Most of you would kill for a chance to give your lives in the fight against the Valoii, even though most of you are probably too cowardly to follow through and that is why you are here. But I ask you: is there any difference between these demons and the Valoii? Here is your chance to make up for the way you have turned your backs on the Ehzeri. Fight, damn you. For once in your lives, fight!”

A wave of silence came over the crowd. Could nothing rouse these people into action? It had been wishful thinking, this idea that the leftover people whom neither side wanted could be turned against these demons. Stupid wishful thinking—

All at once, they roared. They bashed together their pipes and boards, hollered the most vile expletives at the giants and shadows, and bared their teeth.

Just as they ought to have.

He waved them through, and the throng flowed out through the gates and breaks in the fence. Vasi shook her head at the display, but Dannac refused to believe that the fight was futile.

“And when we have killed both sides,” Vasi said, “they will divide us and set us against each other.”

She need not have said it out loud. It was logical, but there always existed the chance that they really could bring down these two forces at once. It may be a ghost of a chance, but Dannac had survived poison gas, phosphorous attacks, and the death-mark of international terrorist, not to mention two years paired with a goat-stubborn Valoii defector. He wasn't about to submit now.

They would put these myths back into their place, and he would dig the holes himself if he had to.

But that was the real problem. They weren't myths at all.

“I still say that we are missing something. Damn, if only I had paid more attention while I had the chance to decipher the painting... Shadows, giants, oblivion... it all ends with darkness. But it didn't. The universe survived, and so did we. So what did I miss?”

He grunted at her.

“You could try words instead of animal noises, you know.” Vasi shook her head and prepared to re-charge his cannon. “Part of the reason I was starting to enjoy this place was that the men here do not act like you.”

“You are right. But why you would prefer men who are always intoxicated and obsessed with cash money and gambling is beyond me.”

“Because they do not treat the women as slaves.”

“So sex objects are better than slaves? And they still view themselves as superior, just like back home. There is no difference, really.”

She left it at that, and probably for the better. They had their moments of camaraderie, but only against a broader background of mutual annoyance.

Even though it loomed over the refinery grounds, the warengine's legs stood several city blocks away. Dannac and Vasi dashed across the filthy workers' camp along with the rest of the battalion. So far, most of the volunteers were obeying his directive to avoid returning fire while they made their way to the war-engine's shadow.

This was probably the worst time for him to be bombarded with images from his detached eye. He stopped and brought his hand to his head.

“What's the matter now?”

“The eye.”

“You mean...”

He nodded. It was shaky and the angle skewed, but he saw flashes of a bloodied Helverliss. Now he stopped trying to block the images.

“What do you see?”

“Helverliss. In chains. Alim is there too, but he's...” She should have listened to him. He had known all along that Alim could not be trusted, but she just had to give him another chance.

“Alim has turned on Capra.”

“Is she okay?”

He shrugged.

“I told you we had to tell Capra about her heritage. It could save her.”

“What heritage? It is more dangerous to convince her of a non-existent ability than to leave her to fix her own problem.”

“How can you be so callous? After all you two have been through, too.”

He resumed his sprint to the war-engine. Vasi kept pace with him, much to his surprise. Now the group began to take position in the streets and alleys surrounding the machine's legs. Clashes broke out, the shadow-corrupted people seeping into the area like a plague.

With Vasi's help, Dannac killed three using the cannon, then led them behind a stack of crates to recuperate.

Vasi was oddly silent.

“What's going on?”

“In the sky, the shadows have made a mad dash for the machine again.”

“I thought they had given up on it.”

“Well, it appears they have decided to try again.”

How he wished to see for himself. Trusting this woman for his sight was degrading. Could he even trust that she knew what she saw?

“The machine keeps fighting them off with its flames. The shadows are already breaking off.”

“Good. Now would you recharge my cannon?” When she said nothing after a minute or so, he repeated the question.

“On the side... a man in black climbs the machine.”

“Why climb it if he can just fly?”

“Perhaps the machine cannot sense something crawling along its metal body...”

He faced the big blob that he knew was the machine. “You'll have to help me aim.” Vasi's enhancement also increased the footprint of the shot, and he was confident that he could pick off the corporeal shadow.

“It's disappeared now, near the head.”

“The bloody things have become mechanics, have they?”

“I don't think so...”

The machine then halted. Its cannons fell silent, smoke curled around the thing's arms, and the constant gush of its flame cannons slowed to a trickle of falling sparks. The whine of its engines dropped in pitch, and the sudden change of its sound told him more than the blurred picture.

“They have disabled it?” Now he actually wanted Vasi's opinion.

“It appears so, but I have a bad feeling...”

“What?”

The rest of Dannac's men went still and craned their necks to watch the machine. A wave of murmuring passed through them. It smacked of battlefield confusion, and Dannac knew it was a mistake. He bellowed to them, “Stay on your guard, you fools.”

From nearer to the machine a voice said, “It moves again.”

“Then get fighting!”

“It is moving, but differently,” Vasi said. “I still do not like this.”

“Big surprise! There is not much to like about this kind of thing.”

The engines bellowed and metal creaked. One of the feet lifted high above their heads. Vasi began to scream incoherently, and she pulled Dannac away from the machine.

“It is moving its cannons. Finding another target.”

Damned woman, she made no sense. “Why are we running?”

“Because it is about to—”

The ground shook and there came a metallic crash at their backs. Then screams arose. “What just happened? Vasi, tell me!”

“The machine has stepped on a third of our people.”

He gasped and faced the machine. It looked the same as before, and he cursed his near-blindness. He could not discern the bodies belonging to the outcries of pain. “What in the name of...”

“The shadows have taken the machine for their own.”

Sevari rubbed his neck and shut his eyes. The knock at the door would not stop, and all Rovan could do was yell, “Go away,” every few minutes.

But this time, Rovan pressed the stud and allowed the visitor in. And when Sevari saw Alim standing there, in an overlarge tunic as though he had picked his clothes at random and face covered in grease, he had to stifle his excitement—at last, an ally with whom he could at least commiserate.

“Alim, I am so glad to see you.” A quick glance at Rovan, who acted as though Sevari did not exist. He tried to mouth “help” to Alim, but the Valoii showed no reaction. Instead, he spoke to Rovan.

Of all people, Sevari's new friend spoke to Rovan.

“I am here to help,” Alim said.

Rovan rolled his eyes and dumped himself from the chair. “Oh yeah? What you got, Valoii?”

Alim gestured to the window. Sevari followed them, and could not shake the feeling of being an ignored child.

“Tell them that the machine has the mind of a person, or one like it.”

Rovan stared at Alim, and slowly his mouth curled into a grin. “If it has the mind of a person... it can be persuaded like a person. Turned to our way.”

“Exactly.”

At once Sevari's head began to hurt even more. The shadows couldn't have found his secret mechanic-soldiers, locked away in the vaults. Only they really knew how the machine worked... how had Alim discovered this?

“Of course,” Rovan said, with a chilling maturity. “That is why Section Three needed the bodies. Had I known that, I would have figured it out myself how to defeat your machine.”

“Bodies?” Sevari said. “Nobody from Section Three mentioned anything about bodies.”

“And how were they supposed to create a bodiless mind? A mind to think for your machine? Did you think they would just create it out of piss and lead?”

“It was supposed to be a working of
vihs
... Are you saying that Section Three was lying to me?”

Rovan began to circle him. “The whole damned refinery lies to you, Till. We'd do anything to keep you from executing us. And Section Three couldn't figure out how to do what you asked, so they found a way around it.” His grin was a flash of malice, lopsided with abnormally sharp canines.

It couldn't be true. Rovan was just playing with him.

Even so, Sevari's throat clenched with a sadness and betrayed sourness he hadn't felt since Iermo's assassination.

It couldn't be true. It couldn't be. They didn't need to lie to him, they didn't need to patronize him...

How
insulting
.

“They used human minds? They used my machinery for murder?” He found Rovan's smugness disturbing. “Rovan, was that what they wanted you to do?” Now he felt like the adult again, and that he had failed to protect his protégé from the incompetent cretins he employed. “They wanted you to kill the other workers for them? I thought they were using you for emptying solvent buckets and delivering samples and cleaning up after them, because Spirit knows they don't do it themselves down there...”

“Oh come off it, Till.”

“Did you? Did you kill those workers?”

Rovan gave a condescending wave and returned to the window. He shut his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, there stood next to him a shadow being. “It's simple,” he told the man in black standing next to him. “Stop trying to destroy it, and find its human mind. It should easily obey us, like half of the idiots out in the streets.”

With that, the shadow faded into nothing.

Rovan hopped onto the desk and began to thump his heels against it. “All they told me was that they needed them dead, and that they had only minutes after a person's death to extract what they wanted. They told me nothing more than that.”