Ninth City Burning (17 page)

I
opened my eyes to warm rain falling, fine mist dewing the grass and gathering in spheres on the leaves to roll and plunge plopping through the branches. The air was thick but not uncomfortably humid, light clouds drifting eastward, and in the west, the warm hues of sunset. The cold, stark air, the havoc of snowflakes I remembered, had gone without a trace. I could almost imagine I had awakened in some lush paradise, the Elysium Papa was known to discuss in his more whimsical moments, or Valhalla, in which Reaper Thom professed firm and unironical belief.

As my thoughts settled into order, it occurred to me that in an afterlife for the gallant dead, my shirts and britches would likely not be so damp, which was to say soaked through. Moreover, once I took stock of my surroundings, I found them quite familiar in arrangement if not in climate. It seemed far more likely I had remained here for some unknown stretch of time, perhaps one measured in months or years rather than days. A stone maiden sleeping undisturbed as the seasons passed around her. Such fairy-tale notions would come to seem irredeemably silly to me very soon; still later I would decide them entirely appropriate for the place where I had turned up, this juncture between the real and unreal.

The path leading to the spot where I lay shone bright and clear in my mind. I pictured myself standing among the breached mountains over the Valley of Endless Summer, declaring my intention to venture down and confirm the place free of threats, and I cursed myself for every brand of foolish I could name. What I ought to have done was lead the scouts back to New Absalom and see to it our coda was packed up and lit out for Emily's Lake or Black Mills or any other of our winter holdfasts. Coming into this valley was recklessness on a par with the worst of my wild and
profligate youth, when I gained a reputation for never turning down a dare. I am on record as running a mile with a live honeybee in my mouth, diving thirty feet to the wreck of some ancient hulk sunk off the southern marshlands, climbing to the top of a ruined monument deep in Nworkie territory, and all other manner of lunacy I thought I had outgrown until I saw the look on Naomi's face as she realized we would likely have to abandon New Absalom. Her disappointment was simply more than I could bear, and I believe it is to blame for my sudden attack of stupidity.

I might even have said I deserved what I got, had I known with any certainty what that was. My last memory was of a strange smell in the air and an internal stirring like the feeling of being secretly watched, then I was swept up by some strange and violent force. The only experience I can name that comes close to matching it was when I was six and nearly drowned. My coda had camped near a beach, and a wave surprised me while I was playing in the surf. I fancied myself a good swimmer, but no matter how hard I fought, my struggles amounted to nothing, and if Papa had not come and dragged me free, I would surely have been carried out to sea. It was the same feeling there in the valley, of being seized by something immeasurably stronger than myself. It took everything I had just to sputter a warning to Naomi and the others before the surge of it overwhelmed me entirely.

My present state was, overall, not nearly so dire as I would have expected, given the events leading up to it. I bore no unaccounted-for cuts or bruises, and what new tears my coat and trousers showed were consistent with a hard fall on rough ground. There was good evidence my clothes had at some point been on fire, but I supposed a little singeing about the hems and collars wasn't bad for a girl who had recently been exploded. My pistol was wedged uncomfortably beneath my back, my rifle basking in the grass a short distance away. Both were loaded and functional. I was short one boot, which turned up after a brief search on hands and knees. My hat, duly charred, had lodged in a tree's lower branches and was easily brought down with the help of a few handy stones.

Once I had established myself as fit to move, I set out for the Ridge. It made no difference whether I had been here an hour or a century—Naomi and the others were making their way back to the breached mountain wall when I saw them last, and if I ever hoped to find them, that was where I had to begin. I forced myself to avoid any conjecture as to what
might have befallen them, knowing such thoughts would quickly give way to panic.

The valley's terrain was unchanged as far as I could see. The trees and rivers, hills and marshes, were just as I remembered them, only now they were alive with the song of birds and insects celebrating what was by all appearances a fine summer evening. The rain, already thin, soon ceased completely, and as the air cooled, I quickened my pace. Of the tribal hordes that had previously infested this territory, there was now no sign but a few cold fire pits and abandoned latrines. The sky was making its way past orange to red when over the treetops I saw the mountain ridge rise into view, glowing in the low light.

I do not know what made me look back then. Perhaps there was some sound I did not consciously perceive, or a flutter in the air; perhaps it was that same sense of being watched. Whatever the reason, as I stood measuring the distance left to the mountains, I glanced over my shoulder and beheld something exceedingly strange.

Small, thin clouds were stretching upward from the horizon, twelve of them, all perfectly parallel, all moving in unison, as though some great twelve-fingered hand were scratching its nails across the glowing sky. I am no amateur when it comes to cloud-gazing, but near as I could say, this variety was entirely new, and drawn swifter and straighter than seemed entirely right for Nature's handiwork. I was prepared to count the sight yet another perplexing phenomenon of this bizarre place, an occurance akin to blue thunder or moon babies, but as the needly clouds moved overhead, they suddenly abandoned their forward course and shifted to a widening, circular pattern, like the vortex of a whirlpool. Each coiling cloud now appeared to have something at its tip, a sharp little thorn ripping through the air. They had described several of their widening loops before I understood these were no idle designs but a spiraling dive, one that would bring them down on me in a matter of seconds—a thought that hardly had time to form before three of the smoking pillars peeled away and came crashing down into the forest, directly between me and the Ridge.

The ground shook as though from some heavy impact, the air splitting with the sound of shattered trees. After that, eerie silence. I had thrown myself to the ground, expecting catastrophe, and enjoyed a few moments in the slick mud wondering what on earth had happened before the woods around me burst into pandemonium.

First came the war trumpets. That was the word that formed in my mind, “trumpet,” though the sound might as easily have been named a roar, as of a dragon or some other beast of old mythology. The reason I thought of a trumpet was that there seemed to be a message bound up in its sound, like the bugle calls of my coda's scouts. These trumpets spoke of battle joined, of unstoppable victory, of no hope or mercy for the enemy, namely me. The blast rumbled over me, bringing with it fear out of all proportion to anything I could hear or see. I am quite certain I would have dropped my rifle and run from the sound as fast as I could go had I not spotted other figures doing just that, coming toward me through the trees.

Almost before I had time to raise my gun, I was facing down a pack of Leafcoat fighters, bows and hatchets drawn. There were eight of them, enough to take me easily. I might have dispatched one or two, but for a nice set of guns like mine, Leafcoats will trade four or five men and call it a bargain. But these only looked me up and down and hurried on, parting as if I were some inanimate obstacle. The trumpets sounded again, and the fear they summoned up nearly sent me following in the Leafcoats' wake. The woods were thick with fleeing forms now, all flushed from hiding places nearby. That must be what the trumpets are for, I thought: We are being herded.

I chose a route perpendicular to the running crowd, following the direction of the Ridge. My hope was to find some way around whatever was making that terrible sound, but I made little headway before the ground beneath me began to vibrate, a familiar rhythm, though on a scale I had never thought to encounter: footsteps. Something huge was coming my way. I hid myself in a bank of scrubby bushes, curling among the thorns and brambles. I expected at any moment to be ground into the dirt, left a pudding of blood and bones topped with a hat, but the footsteps passed in a flurry of swishing brush and snapping branches, and the trumpets calling terror back and forth soon grew dimmed and distant. I waited until the woods were quiet, then I spooled up the last frayed threads of my courage and ran.

The Ridge, I thought, I had to make the Ridge. The notion had come to me that if the mountains were the boundary of this valley, perhaps the things in this place could not travel beyond it, like a ghoul forbidden to cross running water.

I nearly got there, too. The Ridge was high overhead, glowing in the
brilliant sunset, only a small stretch of trees between me and the base of the mountain. And then, so close behind me that the sound tickled the hairs on my neck, one of those awful trumpets sounded. The message had changed. The martial aggression was still there, but now it demanded surrender, proclaimed there would be no escape. I turned, slowly, and faced the thing calling to me.

I did not rightly know what to name it, other than “giant.” Its rough shape was that of a man, albeit broader in proportion than average, a blunt head set low on wide shoulders. But it was clearly no man. The scraggy trees growing below the Ridge came hardly to its waist, and though it was only a silhouette against the falling sun, the smooth, hard lines of its frame spoke of some covering much tougher than skin. The only feature I could discern in any detail was its face, though it resembled a human countenance only by its situation at the front of the head. There was no mouth, no eyes, only twisting patterns of glowing red running from crown to chin, the color an exact match to the fiery sunset, an intricate design that curled back on itself like tendrils of smoke. It reminded me, more than anything else, of looking into the grate of a brazier hot with coals. The war trumpet sounded again, and the red glow deepened, like a scowl.

The giant had crept up silently, appearing as if from nowhere. I thought of its brazen trumpeting, the crashing of huge footsteps, and felt certain now all that was merely for show, intended to drive me into some trap, though I could not have guessed the reason. The giants of Papa's stories, with their accustomed hankering for human flesh, were as far from this hard, polished creature as a cart mule was from the mechanical wagons of the townships. But if it wished me to run now, I was happy to oblige.

My first step as I fled was strangely slow, heavier than it should have been; the second was still more ponderous, and on the third, I stumbled. Everything about me had become unaccountably heavy, my limbs taking on the weight of wood, then stone, then metal, until it was a struggle even to remain upright. I went to one knee, fighting to keep my head pointed toward the giant.

I had no doubt it was responsible for the sudden weightiness of the world. I remember thinking this creature had worked some spell or other magic on me, then dismissing the idea as foolish. As it turned out, I was more right than wrong, but just then all I could say for sure was if this kept up, I would break under my own weight. The brim of my hat sagged over
my face, my hair hung limp, my cheeks dragged against my jaw. I could hardly lift myself enough to crawl. And so I did what seemed the only thing left. I set my rifle across my leg, its barrel digging into the meat of my thigh, pointed it at the great dark bulk before me, and fired.

Whatever result I expected, it was only a tiny fraction of what actually occurred. My shot landed high of center on the creature and burst into a great globe of flame that lit up the dark woods all around. In the flash of light, I saw the giant was covered in a carapace of interlocking plates, all glossy and in places scriven with symbols I cannot quite discern. The pressure bearing down on me lifted at once, and I succeeded in escaping about ten yards into the forest before an invisible force struck me to the ground. I had the distinct impression of being swatted, like a fly. I rolled, turned, and saw the giant approaching. On its chest, where my rifle blast had hit, a circle of embers glowed like the bowl of a lit pipe.

I stood, fired again. My aim was better this time and the resulting explosion took the giant full in the face, though it seemed the world's newly returned lightness was not fully to my advantage: The rifle's kick was about enough to remove my shoulder. The giant, meanwhile, was neither slowed nor deterred by the new pipe-bowl mark burned into its head.

Again I was felled by some invisible shock, and this time, I ended up some twenty feet distant, with the vague impression of having tumbled from the top of a very high tree. My body rang with pain, the worst of it centered about my leg, which no longer conformed to the usual and expected proportions. Something sharp and jagged had torn through my trousers, and I could guess with reasonable certainty that this was my thighbone.