Penult (46 page)

“
Jeez! That sucks. But …
maybe there’s something we can do.”

“
Like what? Go back to
Frelsi? What’s left of it? As if we could even make it there
intact. Is there even a mountain anymore?”

“
There are other
mountains.”

“
Bah. These hills we see
are all too low, too close to the core. There is no way for a soul
to get free.”

“
But … what about …
flying?”

He squinted at me.

“
Flying?”

“
Yeah, sure. I mean, you
don’t have to be standing on the ground to be free of the core,
right? You just need to be up high enough. It’s like … gravity …
for souls. I have my own dragonfly now. I could take Lille up when
the time comes.”

“
They actually gave you a
bug?”

“
Yeah. His name’s Tigger.
He’s a bit wild still, but he’s coming around.”

“
The thing is,” said Lille.
“I would need to be up high enough at the precise moment the deed
is done, when they pull my plug and my heart ceases. And there is
no way of knowing that from here. One can feel it happening, the
transition, they say. But I rarely fade anymore, and when I do, I’m
not always conscious. It was pure luck I was able to overhear the
doctors speaking with my nieces. The event could be as soon as two
days from now, or it could be weeks, depending on how the judge
rules.”

“
Shit. I’m not gonna be
here tomorrow. We’re kind of launching a raid.”

“
What about those wings?”
said John.

“
What wings?”

“
The ones you
made.”

“
Wings? Holy shit. The
Seraph wings! You guys can use those! When you feel it happening
just put them on and fly up as high as you can get. And when it
happens, you’ll be a Freesoul.”

“
Me? Fly?” said Lille. “But
I don’t know how to fly.”

“
You don’t need to. It’s as
easy as chewing gum. And besides, you have some time. You’ll have
time to practice.”

Lille and Bern looked at each other in
amazement, their faces aglow with love and hope.

“
Hang on! I’ll be right
back.

Chapter 49:
Retreat

I ran down the central lane as fast as
my legs could carry me with John keeping pace at my heels. We found
the promenade in chaos. Casualties from the fighting on the lower
terrace were sprawled all along the rim, being triaged by flesh
weavers. Some of the wounds we saw were truly—horrible: bashed in
faces, shattered limbs with bones poking out.

In the living realm, these souls would
be screaming in pain, but things were different here in the
Liminality. A body could withstand unfathomable beating and keep on
ticking. Pain was an afterthought.

Soldiers blocked the stairway. Work
parties were busy bolstering the retaining walls along the rim with
stone scavenged from ruined buildings.

We tried squeezing through a gap in
the wall but a guard held me back.

“
You don’t want to go down
there mate. The Pennies are kicking our ass down there. We’re about
to evacuate whoever’s left.”

“
But we need to get to the
armory.”

“
Step back, please. Ain’t
nobody going nowhere.”

A Frelsian officer stepped to the
fore. “What’s going on?”

“
I need to get down there.
To the grotto.”

“
Not possible. Our last few
units in the forest are executing a delaying action. Don’t expect
them to hold up much longer.”

“
The stuff in the armory.
Did they get it out in time?”

“
I seriously doubt it.” A
wounded Frelsian hobbled over to us and leaned against the wall.
“The bastards broke through both flanks, encircled our front line.
We broke out but they pushed us all the way across the
terrace.”

“
The clearing. Do we still
hold it?”

“
Yeah, but not for
long.”

I burst away from the guards, hopping
the makeshift wall they had thrown up to block the stairs. No one
gave chase expect for John who eluded the grasp of a guard with a
nifty pirouette. We flew down the stairs to the damaged first
landing where the repair crews had abandoned their work half
done.

John and I picked our way carefully
down the damaged sections carefully. The steps had been stripped
away down to slick, steep bedrock. Sheer cliffs dropped away to the
talus heaps below.

“
You really didn’t have to
follow me,” I said.

“
But I want to
help.”

A series of hollow thuds erupted from
the edge of the lower terrace. The Pennies had apparently
transported several root cannons up onto the mountain. The
projectiles they fired were shaggy and massive. The whole cliff
shuddered when they struck. Sheets of rock sheered away and
collapsed.

We inched out way down, making use of
whatever remained of the stairs when we could as a slow but steady
barrage persisted.

Mantid riders still patrolled the
cloud forest but now they had been driven back within a stone’s
throw of the clearing. Trees shuddered and fell. A battle raged
unseen beneath the canopy.

No stairs remained at the base. John
and I had to hang by our fingertips and drop the final ten feet
because the lowest landing had been demolished. The heavy blackout
curtain that had enclosed the entrance to the grotto lay crumpled
in a heap. We dashed into the cave which was awash in the last rays
of the setting sun.

Contrary to what the Frelsian soldier
had told us, it looked like most of the weapons and equipment had
been salvaged. The insect saddles along the side wall remained in
place, but then again there were too few bugs surviving to put them
to use.

I wound my way through a mess of
broken crates and empty shelving to the back of the room where I
had seen the wings. More of grotto’s ceiling had come down and
covered all that remained in grit and dust. I poked around and
pulled up a set of wings that seemed intact. There were bits and
shreds of membrane and a few salvaged joints but only one complete
set.

These were not mine, nor were they one
of the copies we had fabricated. The membranes had the platinum
sheen of the originals Luther had confiscated from the Seraph
Petros.

“
There’s only one set,
John. Here, you take them.”

“
What? Me? Nah. I ain’t
putting on no wings.”

“
John, I mean it. Put these
on! There’s no way you’re making it back up those stairs without
them.”

“
Fuck that. You take them.
You’re way more important than me.”

“
Put them on! And I want
you fly straight back to the gardens and give these to Bern and
Lille.”

His jaw went slack. “What the fuck?
Fly? I can’t fly.”

“
Shut up and strap on those
wings!”

Another projectile crashed low into
the cliff-side and one corner of the grotto entrance collapsed.
John pulled the wings over his shoulders and yanked the straps
tight.

He tried flapping his arms and not
surprisingly, nothing happened.

“
This ain’t gonna work. I
don’t know what I’m doing.”

“
Use your shoulders. Just
squeeze your blades together, that’s all you need to—“

But John was already hurtling towards
the ceiling of the grotto, nearly beaning his head on the stub of a
stalactite.

“
Whoa! I’m … I’m doing it.
I’m flying!” He careened around the cavern, eyes wide, guffawing
like a goofball.

“
Gentle movements now. Flex
one shoulder at a time, but go easy. Just a twitch. Just tense them
up a bit. That’s it! That’s how you steer. Now get your ass out of
here before this whole place comes down on us.”

I guided him to the entrance and once
he was out in the open air, he soared up the side of the cliff like
a runaway balloon. I watched until he had safely cleared the rim
and I stepped out into the clearing, my sword ready at my side as
the mantid riders drifted back. An arc of trees surrounding the
clearing began to shake. The shouts and grunts of battle drew
near.

Chapter 50: The
Stand

The surviving warriors—a ragtag
mixture of Frelsians and Dusters—emerged in twos and threes from
the cloud forest to make their last stand against the base of the
cliffs. Whatever distinctions had separated their units had
dissolved in the chaos of battle. I stared agog at how few they
were, and how many Cherubim were pressing them through the dense
stands of trees.

I climbed atop a heap of freshly
fallen talus, pointed my sword tip and summoned my will. For once
my spellcraft flowed naturally and without effort. One bolus of
energy after another rolled out of my core with no more resistance
than a burp. I aimed specifically for the Hashmallim who, like
puppet masters, guided and amplified the battle efficacy of their
brainless, soulless troops. One by one, with unerring accuracy, my
blasts smashed into them and struck them down, leaving them
twitching and flopping on the ground like bluegills on a
dock.

Something big whistled out of the
forest, struck a boulder, bounced off the ground and struck my
midsection hard, knocking my wind out and bruising my ribs. Had the
projectile struck me directly it would have easily disemboweled
me.

The blow only sharpened my focus and
intensity. My sword sizzled with pulse after pulse. The warriors
cut down these leaderless Cherubim and those that came behind them
were held up by their puppeteers while they peeked around the
moss-covered boles to see what was doing this to them.

A flight of falcons popped over the
rim and were immediately intercepted by a pair of dragonflies that
zoomed in out of nowhere to slash and crumple their wings. One
falcon made it through and sent a ballista bolt shrieking in over
my head. It hovered, maneuvering around to better aim another shot
at me when a mantis lunged out of the canopy and ripped it out of
the sky with its fore claws.

A huge beetle landed in the clearing.
Frelsian and Duster warriors swarmed it and clambered aboard its
back. Its wings exploded into action and it took off from the
clearing, heading for safety on the upper terrace.

Our fighters were evacuating. To cover
their retreat, I stood my ground and fired pulses into the forest
as fast as I could summon them. If worse came to worse I could duck
into the grotto and hold out there under cover. I didn’t care what
happened to me anymore. Whatever happened, happened.

Another mantid, already partially
laden with troops, landed on the talus beside me. Hands reached
down. A score of eyes beseeched me.

“
Save yourselves!” I
shouted. “There’s too many of you. I’ll just weigh you
down.”

“
Screw that! Get your butt
up on this bug, you dumbass!” screamed the mantid rider from his
saddle.

The urgency of his request convinced
me to scramble onto the board. I latched onto a loop of harness.
The mantid’s wings thundered open and thrummed like a helicopter as
we rose along the cliff face.

***

The sun was mostly set when we
alighted on the promenade, only a part of its purplish orb still
poked above the cracker-ravaged hills across the basin. Soldiers on
the rim were busy rolling boulders off the top to further demolish
what was left of the stairways. Seven, battle-scarred mantids had
survived and were being attended to, their wings shredded, wounds
in their shells weeping yellowish blood.

I went over to the Frelsian officer
who had tried to prevent John and I from going down. “That kid I
was with. Did he make it up here okay?”

“
You betcha. The little
bastard was damned lucky we recognized him. Bunch of my guys were
ready to shoot him down. Took him for a Seraph.”

Relieved, but feeling depleted, I
dragged myself up the central lane which was all abuzz with news of
the collapse of our defenses on the lower terrace. Braziers of
glowing root flickered all along the avenue. Perceptions were all
over the place. Some felt that doom was imminent. Others remained
confident that the upper terrace would hold.

The Reapers were moaning in their new
pens at the base of the meadow. Their keepers tossed them scraps
whose identity I was glad remained obscured in the fading
light.

At the War Council’s bunker atop the
hill, I found Olivier standing outside the entrance. It soon became
clear that he was out there waiting for me.

“
Jeez kid. Thank God you’re
here. I thought you had faded or something.”

“
Nah. I was … just helping
out some friends. They meeting yet?

He hauled me aside before I could edge
past him. “Before you go in, that replica you made? Anybody asks.
For now, we pretend it works. Okay?”

“
You want me to lie? What
for? If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

“
Listen. Some in the
council might not be too keen to send us on our raid if they know
we only got that one column. They won’t let us go if we can’t
guarantee we’ll make a big enough impact. Zhang’s already making
some noise about surrendering the mesa and negotiating some kind of
deal with the Lords. Safe passage to the underworld or whatever. I
say fuck that. I wouldn’t put it past these assholes to turn us
into Cherubs … or worse. So, anybody asks you, we got three working
cracker columns. Got it? We don’t want this expedition to be called
off.”