The Gospel According to Verdu (a Steampunk Novel) (The Brofman Series) (32 page)

Candice’s chin rested in an indentation cut into the block, a feature that allowed the axman a good angle for striking at her neck. Verdu held her there with one hand and with the other slipped the shackles down past a low hook on the front of the block, pinning her to the spot. He growled into Candice’s ear as he used her back as a prop to push himself up to standing.

Fenimore was unable to make out any of Verdu’s words to Candice this time, but the tone was bitter. Fenimore could taste his own rising anger. His very best friend—his brother, his twin from the other side of the world—was now unrecognizable. His heart did not want to believe what he was seeing. How could Verdu’s character have changed so in the last four months? The Kite’s Republic Intelligence Service had been right. This was no longer a useful asset. Verdu’s life was forfeit. When the action started, Fenimore knew right where to strike.

Verdu hobbled backward, tottering on his bad leg, until he was shoulder to shoulder with the Tugrulian official, who spoke in monotones toward Candice’s general direction. A few seconds passed, then Verdu said in a clear voice, “Candice, does the condemned have any last words?”

A tear ran down the bridge of her nose and dripped onto the platform as she spoke. “Yes, I do. All that I have done, I have done to save the people from hunger and tyranny. The emperor gives you scraps, but I gave you means to feed yourselves. The land is not poisoned! Any fool with a few tools and some seed can prove that. Choose life. Choose to live your lives and be free. The land is good and the gods will bless your crops. Have faith.”

Verdu cleared his throat. “That was very moving, but this crowd only speaks Tugrulian.” He turned to the pinch-faced official and made a
get on with it
gesture with his hand. The official nodded vigorously and called out to the executioner, who slowly began to lift the ax.

The moment Fenimore had been waiting for was at hand, and he tensed for the fight. Each member of the resistance had a role to play, and timing was everything. It was also critical that no one act until just the right second. Fenimore kept his nature tightly leashed.

The crowed leaned in and collectively held its breath. Somewhere in the hushed crowd a baby began to cry hysterically. Every eye watched the rising blade, but it never reached the top of the expected arc. Without warning, the ax swerved from a vertical chop to a swing slicing down and away. Verdu, whose eyes, like so many others in the square, never left the razor-sharp curve of the blade, flexed backward just in time to avoid the killing force of the stroke, but not all of the harm. A fine ribbon of blood erupted near his left collarbone and trailed down across his chest, disappearing over his ribs.

The ax, unsatisfied with just a taste of blood and carried by the force of the axman’s powerful arms, continued its arc and came to rest three-quarters of the way through the squat official. The man’s small mouth formed into a surprised O as he watched his left arm fall to the ground. His legs, no longer taking orders from his severed spine, gave way, further tearing his body and covering the platform, Candice’s back, and many of the onlookers with blood and offal.

As Verdu slumped to the ground, panic broke out. People screamed. They dropped their moss bread and snatched their children to their chests as they stampeded to the three narrow exits. Guards surrounding the platform leaped to action. A few jumped toward the axman, who was preparing to swing his lethal blade again. Others, falling back onto their training as security for princes of the blood, grabbed for Verdu, some even covering his body with their own. For his part, Verdu was flat on his back on the platform, his brace-bound leg folded at an awkward, painful angle to one side. He made a grunting screech, and heaving himself and at least one guard to roll to the side, his leg snapped forward. Once released, the power of the walking motors took over and he kicked with the force of a bee-stung mule. His foot struck the chopping block and sent it lurching forward. Candice, still attached to it by her shackled hands, was dragged along as it tumbled off the front of the platform.

Candice, somersaulting end over end with the weighty block, thrashed for all she was worth in an attempt to keep the dense wood from falling on her in a crushing blow that would do her in as well as any Tugrulian ax.

Fenimore was on the move.
This
had not been the plan, exactly, but he dared not split hairs when skulls were waiting to be split. The fragrance of blood was in the air, like smelling salts to the sleeping warrior within him. He saw the block falling from the platform, and dived toward it. He hit it square in the side at mid-dive, the flat of his palms slipping on the sticky blood of the slaughtered official. He prayed his momentum was enough to make the block fall next to Candice, and not directly on her. If he was lucky, it would fall on the foot of the nearest guard instead.

One can hope
, he thought to himself.

Even better, Fenimore’s blow popped Candice’s hands free of the hook that connected her to the block. She landed on the hard stone of the marketplace shoulders first, her tightly balled form then unrolling to flat as each of her parts hit the ground. For the second time in ten minutes all the air was slammed out of her lungs by the force of a fall.

Perhaps the repeated blows to her head affected her vision, or perhaps it was the lack of oxygen to her brain from having the wind knocked out of her, but her eyes filled with sparkles. What she saw made her want to scream with joy, to wave her hands and do a jig, but her shocked limbs could not cooperate; she had no breath to voice her glee.

A veiled face eclipsed her sight and a firm pair of feminine hands were wiping the tears and gore from Candice as she tried to breathe. The woman, reading the sudden fear in Candice’s eyes, tore the cloths away from her face and started to shout. “Candice! Eet ees me! Ahy-Me! Ve go now. Up!
Up!
”

She pulled Candice to her feet. The sudden change in posture, the rush of adrenalin, and her continued lack of air caused Candice to swoon, her eyes rolling back into her head. Ahy-Me did her best not to drop Candice back onto the ground, and ended up dangling the limp woman by one arm.

A fleeing merchant running from the scene was shoved by a guard coming in the other direction and sprawled across the cobblestones, knocking Ahy-Me to the side. She fell hard onto one elbow, and Candice smacked into the ground again. Ahy-Me scrambled to her feet quickly, but could not pull Candice up with her.

“Fen-ee-more!” she called over the roaring chaos. “Candice has collapsed! Help!”

Fenimore, who had overpowered a guard and taken his poleax, tossed the weapon to another member of the resistance and ran to Ahy-Me’s aid. He looked at Candice and checked the pulse at her neck. It was still there, but her breath was not. “Get ready to launch,” he ordered Ahy-Me. “She needs to get out of here.”

“I can no hold her and go.” Ahy-Me pointed to her scraped and heavily bleeding elbow. “Ve vill need now stay together, Fen-ee-more.”

“Fine,” he said, and took a deep breath, pinched Candice’s nose, and blew into her mouth. Her chest expanded, then the air rushed out again. She coughed once and started to come to. Her eyes searched around but could not seem to focus on either of the people holding her up. She sucked in air, raggedly and haltingly, and croaked, “
Brofman
. . . ?”

“No, my dear,” Fenimore said soothingly as he started unwinding his layers of fabric and tying them onto Candice. “The
Brofman
didn’t bring us. Pranav Erato arranged this. We’re about to get you out of here, but you must stand up. Can you stand on your legs?”

Panting, Candice nodded. She kept muttering between gasps, “
Brofman . . . Brofman . . . Brofman!
” It made no sense to Fenimore and Ahy-Me. The pair were diligently strapping a variety of belts to Candice, and banging bits of fabric on the ground. Each time they did, there was the sound of cracking crockery and whooshing air.

Candice worked hard on keeping herself breathing while all around her the world went mad. Imperial guards were fighting to subdue the axman as he harvested souls like a reaper, killing and maiming soldiers with every swing. Other guardsmen were battling the members of the resistance, who were now armed with the weapons lost by the soldiers already killed. Most of the rest of the crowd were running for their lives, and people were getting trampled and pushed. Screams, curses, grunts, and cries came from every direction and mixed with the sound of clanging steel and the crack of bone.

The guards who had initially jumped to Verdu’s aid were now running back into the palace through the heavy door that the execution entourage had used to enter the square. They dragged their prince along. He thrashed and wriggled, trying to see what was going on.

Ahy-Me and Fenimore flanked a still dazed Candice as several giant bubbles appeared from the cloths they’d arranged around her. The balloons floated up and pulled on the gossamer strips attaching them to Candice. Up she rose, and Ahy-Me, who was tied to Candice’s side, went with her. They rose quickly, then jerked to a stop. Fenimore, tied to Candice by longer ropes, could not fully get off the ground.

The lighter-than-air balloons should have easily shot Ahy-Me and Candice up and away to a speedy escape. Fenimore, who had planned on fighting his way out of the square with the rest of the resistance, was weighing the ladies down. He chastised himself for agreeing to tie himself to Candice and Ahy-Me.

Shifting his weight and kicking off the ground, Fenimore dropped the sword he had picked up, which raised the collection of balloons and their passengers another foot. Ahy-Me saw how losing the sword’s weight changed their altitude and started to shed every unnecessary thing she could. She flicked away her shoes, flung her head wrap down, and even spit a few times, but all that got them was another few feet higher. They were drifting toward the wall of the palace, a wall they needed to clear in order to get away.

Some of the guards noticed their prisoner making a break for it. A general cry went up, and a few poleaxes were clumsily stabbed at the floating trio. Luckily, they were just out of reach, but still not high enough to clear the wall.

“We’re too low! This is never going to work unless we can get higher, fast!” Fenimore cursed himself for dropping the sword. He had no other way to cut himself free so that the women could float up. He clawed at the knots binding him to the others, but the pull of his own weight made the ties too tight.

A metallic crash on the paving stones below grabbed his attention; it was Candice’s heavy shackles hitting the ground. Fenimore turned his eyes to the professor, who was feverishly working to release her hobbled legs from their chains. They came loose and fell, causing the trio to bob even higher.

“
Yes!
Oh, Candice! You clever girl!” Fenimore shouted. “Well done!”

Candice, who was becoming more herself with every breath of air, said, “Don’t call me
girl
. And it was no great trick—Verdu
gave
me the key.” Candice showed Fenimore the small key and then dropped it, too.

“
Verdu?
” he exclaimed. That was an unexpected and inexplicable turn of events. Fenimore could not make it add up. He now had no clue whose side Verdu was on.

“WALL!” Candice shouted. The trio banged into the top half of the palace wall, which produced grunts in three-part harmony from the makeshift balloonists.

Fenimore recovered from the thumping first, and he drew his legs up between himself and the hard stone. He pushed against the wall and tried to launch them up and over the vertical face. The balloons rubbed and shuddered against one another and scraped along the stones. The friction stifled all lift, and the slight breeze pinned them to the wall.

“We’re in trouble!” Fenimore shouted to no one in particular. They were stuck, and Fenimore realized he had no way of helping them out of the predicament they were in.

This was not how things were supposed to work out. The plan had been that an archer would shoot the executioner as he raised his ax. That was the cue for each of the members of the resistance to rush the platform and throw Candice to Ahy-Me and launch the lighter-than-air balloons. The resistance would add to the chaos by putting up a good fight. It was rather an elegant strategy—at least that first part. But the arrow never came to fell the axman. The pranav had sent three archers into the market; each was to pick up a single arrow hidden in the marketplace and collect a small bow from the shooting points. Triple-redundant assassins. None had taken the shot.

Now Fenimore glanced around as he dangled in the air, looking for archers who might be aiming at him and the two women, but there was no sign.

And then he saw her. The sea of panicked people escaping the marketplace parted, and Chenda walked right up the middle of the divide. Her manner was calm, but he could see her brows drawn together in concentration. This was a well-controlled and deliberate show of her power. She wanted to be seen and even feared. She was magnificent.

He loved that she could make such an entrance.

When people got too close to her, a swirl of dust would rise and the interlopers would be pushed back. Every eye followed her, even as every foot ran for the exits.

She looked up at the balloons bouncing along the wall of the palace, saw who was hanging from them, and sighed in relief. Her eyes locked onto Fenimore’s. All the dread he had carried about seeing her again fell from his heart and mind like Candice’s discarded shackles. He felt her presence and love. The missing piece of himself slid back into its proper place, and he vowed never to try to shut it away again. He took a deep breath and finally felt the joy in it. Once again he felt whole, loved. She smiled and took in each of the ladies also tied to the balloons, finally letting her gaze fall on Fenimore.

Lifting her hand to her lips, she tossed a kiss into the air. The balloons swirled away from the wall, gently at first, and then they shot skyward. Chenda waved as the wind she sent blew them higher—much higher—and over the wall.