The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (21 page)

“…for information about the Golden Caravan.”

Delians!

Those had to be Petronauts; the greedy Petronauts, who worked with the greedy pretenders to take everything good for themselves.  She whimpered, then bit down hard on her lip to keep from making any more sound.  Those metal people were scary, but she couldn’t let them scare her. 

The taller one was talking.  She sounded like a lady, but who knew what was really inside that ugly suit.  “If you have had any contact with the Golden Caravan, we’re happy to talk, in public or in private—”

They want to stop the Golden Caravan.  They want to keep all their tools for themselves.  They don’t want me or Ariell to have our presents, or anybody else either!

“Flame of ages,” Ariell whispered.  “Petronauts.”

A man’s hands came down on their shoulders from behind.  “Girls, watch yourselves now,” the big baker was saying, his face lined with concern.  “You wanna back away from there.  We don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

“What are they doing here?”

“Nothing good, girl, nothing good.  If this heats up, girls, you get with the other kids and you run out into the woods.  You run far, until it’s safe.  Ariell, you’re a strong girl, you keep those little kids safe.”

They nodded automatically.  He headed back for the cooking house.  “Are you gonna run too?” Columbine asked.

The baker looked back at her, and his jaw stiffened.  “Only to run those bastards out of here,” he said, his voice lower than she’d ever heard it before.

*****

“Never heard of any Golden Caravan.  You see any gold around here?”  Kipes said, throwing his arms out wide.

“Can’t you leave us in peace?”

“Back where you came from!”

“Here’s an offer,” the tall one said.  “We’ll leave Two Forks and wait in a spot fifteen minutes due south.  Anyone who wants to talk to us anonymously?  We’ll make it worth your while.”

“Lies!”

“Try another one!”

“You won’t get us alone!” one of the midlings screamed, scooping up a rock from the edge of the path.

“Watch it,” the black one said, warningly, before the young man could heave his missile.  “We just want to talk here.  No reason things have to get nasty.”

That buzzing sound in the air was louder than ever.  Kipes looked up, squinting into the bright sky—and there it was.  A magical floating machine, covered in thick armor.   A fortress built for one.  And while these Petronauts talked, and talked, and talked, it was sinking closer towards them.  And when it got close enough… who knew what it would let loose?

We’re being suckered
, he realized in an instant of clarity. 
We’re keeping our eyes on these bastards while their buddies slip the noose on us from above.

“Check the skies!” he roared out, turning to his neighbors.  He stabbed a finger towards the flying machine.  “Ambush!”

The people of Two Forks screamed; a cry of terror, and a cry of vindicated rage.  The two Petronauts shot a quick glance up to the skies at their reinforcements from above.  This would be Kipes’ best chance.

Spheres, just let my boy live through this
, he prayed as he pulled the gun out from under his shirt.

Chapter Seventeen

The Battle Of Two Forks

A roar from the mob, and then the unmistakable crack of a gunshot.  There could be no clearer signal for the other Petronauts to move in.

Sir Mathias’ legs were already pumping before the echo of the gunshot died away.   The Cavaliers were right behind him, Dame Julie going through a truly inspired litany of curses.  Dame Gaulda, already positioned several lengths ahead of them, was making a beeline directly for the gate.  “Vault the walls,” she called back to them, her voice forceful but completely controlled.  “Get my flanks and cover the retreat.”

“Left,” Sir Xiaoden called.  The pair of ‘Cavaliers broke left, piling on speed as they ran towards the high stockade.

That makes me right
, Mathias thought, ranine coils in overdrive as he sprinted towards the stockade on the other side of the gate.  “Iggy, who’s hit?” he snapped into his Communicator.

“A big guy took a potshot at Orinoco.  She took a wild leap, fell through the roof of a house to your left, thirty meters inside the gate.  Can’t tell if she’s hit or not, but the whole damn town’s rushing her!”

 
“Orinico’s down in a house thirty meters inside!”  Sir Mathias bellowed at the Cavaliers.  They may or may not have nodded; it was hard to tell, at these speeds.  The stockade was coming up fast.  The big, thick logs were about three meters high on this side, and seriously pointy on top.  He drew a deep breath, held it, and leapt.

The wind whistled past his armor.  His chin was pushed down to his chest by the force of the jump.  It was nothing like the acceleration of the thrust pack, of course.  They hadn’t been deployed with those, reasoning that they were too ‘tum-hungry to make sense in a long search mission like this.  Also, somebody thought the open flames in the dense forest would cause more problems than they were worth. 

He cleared the stockade handily, looking down as he fell towards neatly cultivated rows of onions a score of meters from the creekside that ran through the settlement.  A woman was standing nearby with a washbasin at her side.  A handful of farmers were running towards one of the strange, furry, domed houses that seemed to fill this place.  Someone screamed as he landed in the onion rows with a shower of wet brown soil.

He shot up to his feet, tracking the villagers with his gun-arm.  The woman bolted for the creek, and the three farmers disappeared into a house he’d jumped over, close to the gate. 
Running for cover.
  Then Mathias caught sight of Sir Kelley on the main drag in town, rushing headlong into a knot of men and women outside a hut with a ruined roof. 
That must be where Dame Orinoco is
.

Kelley’s truncheon was alive in his hands.  An uppercut lifted one farmer off his feet and landed him in a sprawling heap.  A clout to the side of the knee brought a woman down, slashing wide with a dagger as she fell.  Another man jabbed at Sir Kelley’s face with the head of a sledgehammer.  The ‘naut ducked under it, grabbing the man’s wrist with his free hand and using momentum to roll the larger farmer over his shoulders.  The throw sent the man crashing on his back, a moaning wreck in the street. 

Sir Kelley planted himself in the doorway to the house, pointing his truncheon at the advancing mob.  “Lay down your arms!” he shouted, his amplified voice ringing from every corner of the town.  “There’s no need for this to—”

A hail of musket balls struck the earth around him, and Kelley leapt backwards into the house.  Sir Mathias couldn’t see him or Orinoco from his vantage point, but he saw the two other Cavaliers leap into view over the gate in blurs of black and white, sabres gleaming in the air.  He looked deeper into the town, to pick out the shooters, and saw several snipers lying on their bellies on the wooden roofs of two long buildings bordering the village square.  “Iggy,” he said, flicking the switch on his belt as he started to move, “help me with these snipers on the roofs.”

Iggy responded something in his ears, but before he could take three steps he heard the more pressing sound of hooves off to his right.  Sir Mathias turned to see a quartet of farmers on horseback bearing down on him.  One had a long pike, two had military sabres, and the last had a— 
flames!
he thought in astonishment as the cold-eyed woman raised her weapon.

The blade was the length of a shortsword, but as wide as a canoe oar, and ringed all along its edge with dull metal points connected by lengths of metal, like a necklace strung with shark’s teeth.  The thickly muscled woman was wearing padded gloves as she held the hilt with both hands, her knuckles hidden behind a thick metal handguard.  The base of the weapon was belching grey smoke, and as he retreated a step he saw the metal teeth suddenly whir into blurry movement, zipping around the perimeter of the blade at breakneck speed.

A chain blade
, Sir Mathias thought.

He’d seen a variant design tested on a tree branch outside the Civic annex a few years back.  The innocuous memory was much more troubling now as the farmer leveled the fiendish device at him. 
How, by the eight Spheres, did some yokel in Two Forks get one of these?

There was no more time to wonder about it.  The man with the pike drove his horse hard, tracing a wide arc in an effort to get behind Mathias and box him in.  Dirt flew up from the horses’ hooves in great clods as the other three charged through the cultivated land.  The chain blade was buzzing like a nest of hornets.  Sir Mathias raised his gun arm, hesitating.  They weren’t here to slaughter farmers, even if this crazy town was perfectly happy to spill their blood.  Breathtakingly fast, he sidestepped towards the mounted pikeman, getting inside the startled farmer’s stabbing range. 
Desperate times
, he thought fatalistically, as he kicked the man’s horse.

He lifted his right boot high, almost bringing his knee to his chest, and planted the sole of his foot against the horse’s meaty flank, shoving forward with all his might.  Its front leg had been up in the air, mid-gallop, and without any way to brace itself, its head and shoulders lurched sideways as its back half ran forward.  It twisted horizontally in midair, whinnying, hooves slashing in panic.  The farmer stayed nearly upright in the saddle as the horse spun beneath him, the point of his pike drifting higher and a slow look of concern taking root on his face.  Then the horse landed heavily on the ground—and on the man’s right leg—and momentum whipped him the rest of the way into the ground with a hollow crack.  Sir Mathias set his teeth grimly.  He could only pull his punches so far.

“Drop your weapons,” he got out, obligatorily, as the other riders descended on him.  A short-haired woman slashed at him with a decapitating stroke from her sabre.  He parried the blade over his head with his armored forearm and spun in place, flinging his other arm behind his back in a wild grab.  His questing fingers dug into the woman’s coarse sleeve, and Sir Mathias yanked.  The woman toppled out of her saddle and tumbled sideways to land on her shoulder in the path of the other swordsman.  The farmer pulled up on his reins to avoid trampling his neighbor, swooping away from the fray at the last moment. 

Then the cold-eyed woman with the chain blade was on top of him, holding the weapon low and even, pointed straight at his chest.  She didn’t waste her energy swinging the machine; all it had to do was touch him to rip through his armor and lop off a piece of his body.  There was no space to jump, and he wasn’t positioned to hit her first.  So Sir Mathias dropped to the ground and rolled desperately away, between the legs of the riderless horse.  The confused animal was still trotting forward without its rider, and it clocked him on the thigh with one of its back hooves.  Sir Mathias sprang back up to his feet on the far side of the animal, ignoring the sting in his leg.  The two mounted farmers were swinging back around towards him, and the woman on the ground spit dirt out of her mouth and pulled herself to her feet, clutching her sabre with a death grip.

Some cakewalk
, Sir Mathias thought, his muscles tensing.

*****

First, one Petronaut in black armor had jumped over the stockade, landing right in the onion patch.  Then two more in black-and-white had jumped into town on the other side, waving their swords high, and another one with a skull face had just barreled straight through the gate. 
It
is
an ambush
, Columbine realized, gripping her apron tightly. 
They’re here to wipe us out.

The noise of gunfire on the roof of the cooking house startled her.  Men and women had climbed up there with their muskets while she wasn’t looking.  They were keeping the first two Petronauts pinned in the broken house for now, but Columbine looked up to see the flying machine swooping in their direction, far, far overhead.  Who knew what it would do?

Columbine got mad.  These Delians wanted to stop the Golden Caravan from sharing with ordinary people.  Fine.  They could fight the Caravan as much as they wanted; she was sure the Caravan would win.  But the people of Two Forks had nothing to do with it!  Taking the Caravan’s loot wasn’t the same as taking sides.  They were innocent.  They just wanted to be left alone.

But the Delians didn’t care.  The bullies in smoking armor were beating good men and women to the ground just for standing up for their homes.

She suddenly saw her daddy back on that terrible day, pitchfork raised high as the bandits charged him on their big black horses.  He turned back and yelled, his dirty face framed by the burning barn behind him. 
“Get out, girls!  Get out!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Ariell hissed in her ear, pulling her away from the building.  “Columbine, we’ve got to get out!”

“No,” Columbine said, struggling.

“Now!  We lived in the forest before, we’ll do it again.”

She pulled out of her sister’s grip and glared right in Ariell’s eyes.  “We live here now, in Two Forks.  And we need to help them fight.”

“We don’t—”

“They did a good deed for us, and we’re gonna do one back.”

“What’s the matter with you?  Look—nobody helps anybody but themselves.”

“Well then, go help yourself,” Columbine spat, grabbing the hunting knife off of Ariell’s belt.  She had the blade in her hands before her sister could react.  She wrapped both hands around the hilt and dashed around the cooking house, towards the main gate.  The skull-faced Petronaut had stopped, framed by the gate behind him, and was staring down the long path towards Columbine and all the other farmers.  Columbine bared her teeth, trying very hard to be unafraid amid all the smoke and gunshots and shouting.