The Seven Markets (29 page)

They’d broken through the beast’s armor to the womb supporting its driver. One of the Shivari, not waiting for his fellows, reached down to pull the human clear and silence the beast. In the time it took him to do this the armor healed itself again; it closed on the warrior’s arm like teeth, slicing straight through the blue flesh. The warrior fell back, bleeding copiously. Of the lost arm Cutter could find no trace at all.

He stopped to survey the battlefield. Felwyn was directing the ranged fighters with unerring accuracy. The dwarven battalion held the human soldiers back, turning their axe-heads to the flat sides and bashing whatever fool ventured within their reach. The giants alternated between kicking at the humans on the ground and fighting the mechanical beasts.

His Shivari resumed their attack on the pilot. A flash from the corner of his eye made Cutter duck reflexively; armored soldiers were now scaling the front of the mechanical beast. One of them fired off a shot too early, giving away their attack.

“More from the front! You and you, get rid of them!” Cutter hooked the mace into his belt. “Keep at it,” he said to the remaining warriors. “Don’t stop, not for anything. I’ll deal with the pilot.”

He drew his sword and waited.

All around him the clatter of battle, his heart’s song grown large. Shivari warriors fighting at the front and rear of the beast, knocking back the humans as quickly as they could climb. The rhythm of the digging warriors’ weapons grew faster and faster as the beast’s golden armor fought to compensate for their attack. He felt his breathing slow as the old, familiar calm washed over him, slowing time to a standstill.

A warhammer crashed down into the beast’s skin, breaking off several shimmering fragments. They blinked away to nothingness once separated from the whole.

A mace smashed down, spiked and mean, missing its brother by a hair.

A morning star was next, its blades jagged like lightning bolts—and Cutter saw a break in the beast’s skin, a sliver of a mouth, as if the thing were sneaking a quick breath.

He struck without hesitation or mercy, his blade slotting into the open mouth full to the hilt. A wail of dire agony shook the beast’s frame, and with a pop of collapsing air, it was no more.

Cutter and his warriors hung absurdly in midair for a moment before falling. It was a long way to the ground, but they were lucky; a good many humans were waiting to cushion their landing.

His Shivari made short work of the soldiers before Cutter ordered them back onto the attack. “Join your brothers and sisters. Tell them how to bring these horrors down.” It was not long before two more of the beasts were destroyed.

The war on the ground was not going as well. Felwyn directed the ranged fighters with unerring skill. Their arrows and hurled projectiles found the human soldiers with deadly accuracy, pushing them back, but only slowing them momentarily, as wounds closed faster than they could be inflicted. Up close, the stream of soldiers seemed inexhaustible, and their own fighters were growing tired. Even if they brought down the nine remaining beasts, they would soon be overwhelmed on the ground.

The giants were fighting away from the beasts’ cannons, working to stem the tide of human reinforcements. It was a losing battle. No matter how many they crushed or swatted into the sides of buildings, more came. It was nothing but a numbers game. No matter how valiantly they fought, no matter the tricks they employed, given enough time the humans would flood the Market in soldiers, subsuming them all.

“We are doing well, sire, but we cannot win.”

“Then we must flee.” Cutter felt a rustling of motion and the Prince’s head popped up out of the sling. “Can we make it to the portal?”

“Possibly. What if we organize a retreat, bring them with us?”

The Prince shook his head. “No. The humans will follow. We must spirit away while the battle rages.”

“Sire, please do not ask me to. Perhaps we can still—”

“Still fail? Still die? If we cannot win, as you say, we will be taken. You may be lucky enough to die—that madman has a bone to pick with you—but what do you think he will do to me? No, Cutter, we must flee.”

Cutter watched as a Shivari warrior fell beneath the combined assault of a dozen humans. Six of the mechanical beasts focused their fire on a giant, reducing it to man-size giblets, slathering the street and nearby buildings with gore. Felwyn directed bolts of lightning and balls of fire at the beasts, rocking them where they stood but doing no real damage. More and more of the armored humans poured onto the high street from every direction.

He could flee. His Prince had ordered it. His King would accept no other action. But a lifetime of battle and war had armored his heart against such an act of cowardice. Felwyn would see him, the Shivari and the dwarves and the others would see him. That they would soon be nothing but meat for the worms did not ease his mind. They would carry their dirge of Cutter’s betrayal into the next world, and the winds would sing of his cowardice for eternity.

“No!”

A blaze of pain erupted from his hand. At first Cutter thought he’d been shot. The humans had finally recognized him as their prey and focused all their weapons on him. But his hand was not injured, no smoky trails of gold rose up from the site of his pain. Instead, a nimbus of purest white issued forth from the third finger of his right hand. From the ring he wore, placed there by the King himself, binding him to his service. Waves of destruction surrounded him, devouring a dozen of the armored humans as the pain grew greater and greater. Cutter screamed and fell to his knees, exhausted beyond belief.

The dusky gem shattered down the center.

It fell from his finger and was lost.

The Cutter who rose was not the same man who’d gone to his knees. His eyes were filled with fury and hunger for glorious battle. If this day brought his death, he would have it be such a death as the poets never ceased wagging their cursed tongues over.

“Flee! Flee!” His voice boomed out over the street. “I will not flee! Carry yourself away on your hands and knees if you will not fight, whelp!”

His words were nonsense to all except his squire, but there was no mistaking his actions. He flew into the heart of the battle with a furious snarl and set upon the foul humans, felling three and four of them with every blow of his mighty arm. He knocked aside their paltry attacks, and crushed them like pesky bugs. The Market’s travelers swelled behind him as, impossibly, he began forcing the humans back off the high street almost singlehandedly.

The Market’s fighters followed as Cutter pursued the fleeing humans. Three more of the mechanical beasts fell as he passed, as if his fury was enough to bring them low. He fought on and on, driving forward, sensing through his boundless rage that the architect of the day’s misery could not be far.

He pushed on into the next courtyard, where more of the mechanical beasts waited. And astride the centermost beast, which was taller than the rest, Cutter saw people who could not be there. The Prince’s bride, long since gone to die in the land of the humans, and the cook’s boy, whom he’d bound to his service so many years ago.

Cutter snarled and fought onward, rallying the Market’s forces behind him. Fire and lightning filled the sky, and two more of the beasts crumpled to the ground. Cutter found himself at the base of the large one and hauled himself up, ignoring the burning of iron on his hands and feet and face, ignoring the Prince’s wails of protest as the iron burned him as well.

And finally it came to pass that Captain Cutter, hero of a thousand battles, found himself facing the humans’ leader. Recognition pierced his mind, calming the fire within but not extinguishing it.

“You? I killed you!”

“Indeed you did,” Commander Hart said, a mad smile on his face. “I’m here to return the favor.”

Cutter charged at the madman, readying his mace for a killing blow—

—which never came. It flew from his hand with a mind of its own, clattering useless to the ground below.

Very well, the shield. Its edge would suffice, and the man had no armor. Cutter shifted his grip and swung at Hart’s throat, intending to sever his head with a single blow. The shield crumpled to dust on his arm.

And the madman laughed to see his hated enemy brought low.

“Here, take a load off, will you, sir?”

Cutter’s legs went out from under him. The sling bearing the Prince’s weight fell loose as well. There was a burst of light and a wall grew between them, itself then sprouting additional walls until Cutter and the Prince found themselves caged.

“I’m a little disappointed, to be honest,” Hart said. “It took you
ages
longer to get to us than I expected. And here I was thinking you were so fearsome, so ferocious. I really had you worked up to proper boogieman status. Shows what that’ll get you, doesn’t it?”

Cutter roared. The bars were cast from the same iron as the soldiers’ armor, but that did not stop him slamming himself against them over and over again. Beside him, in his own cage, the Prince mewled and writhed in pain.

Hart observed the wriggling cloak. “What is this? A pet? I didn’t take you for the sentimental sort.”

Ellie stepped forward, dressed in black, a green cloak with gold edging hanging from her shoulders. When she touched the surface of the Prince’s cage, sparks leapt off as if in a panic. “Allow me to introduce my husband, the Prince. Not much to look at without his glamour, is he?”

“This? This . . . thing?” Hart’s eyes were wild. “I might question your taste in men, dear.”

“I would be forced to agree.” She knelt by the Prince’s cage. His jewel was in her hand. “You! Hated beast! Long years have I served in your bondage. Set me free now or die!”

The Prince hid shaking beneath Felwyn’s cloak. He coughed but did not speak.

“Set me free! Set me free!” She banged her bare hands on the Prince’s cage again and again. “Damn you to a thousand hells, you will free me!”

Within his cage, the Prince shivered. The sound he made could have been laughter.

Ellie reached through the bars of the cage and seized him by the neck. Her eyes were filled with fire, her teeth bared in an animalistic snarl. “You will give me my freedom!”

The pitiful wretch opened his eyes, searching her face for nearly a minute before answering.

“I do not know you, girl.”

She wailed as she dug her fingers into the Prince’s shriveled throat, squeezing the life from him. The Prince’s feet kicked, the cloak falling free, revealing him for all to see. His body was wasted, nothing but pockmarked skin and rickety bones. His head was too big for the rest of his body, lolling to one side as the strength went from him.

“Now now,” Hart said. “More care, please, my dear.”

Ellie ignored him. She passed her other hand between the bars, and now she was strangling him with both hands, wrenching him back and forth, the top of his head sizzling against the iron ceiling of his cage.

“Enough,” Hart said. He touched Ellie’s shoulder and a jolt of blue flame leapt from him to her. She flew back, colliding with the wall of their platform.

In his cage, the Prince wheezed, lungs rattling. Down on all fours, he coughed dryly, a thin bead of bloody saliva falling to fry on his shimmering floor.

Hart knelt down beside the Prince. “Can’t blame her, really, bucko. Not after what you did. But I’m not through with you yet.”

He rose and signaled for the cook’s boy and a tall blond woman, standing nearby, to help Ellie up.

“Mind your manners, princess. This show’s just getting started.”

Ellie shrugged them off. Around her neck, the Prince’s gem bubbled with power. “Don’t you dare touch me, Commander. Do I need to remind you who you work for?”

“You don’t, actually. But I’ve been thinking we’re long past due for a contract negotiation. At the very least, I deserve a hell of a bonus.” Hart waved his hand and Ellie was flung backward, over the edge of the platform. He rushed to the rail, perhaps hoping she’d splatter when she hit but he was buffeted back by the beating of tremendous wings as a tremendous, blue dragon swooped down to catch Ellie in the nick of time.

From his cage, Cutter called out to Hart. “You’re in for it now,
bucko
.”

Hart rolled his eyes and tapped a button on his throat. “Air support,” he said, sounding bored. “Ten should do nicely—no, an even dozen.”

Twelve of the armored soldiers gathered down on the street. One by one they raised their arms, and as Cutter watched, their armor grew and multiplied until each man was surrounded by the gleaming shape of an enormous, angular bird of prey. They beat their wings and leapt into the air after Ellie and the blue dragon.

The blue dragon held Ellie aloft, climbing high into the sky.

She screamed to be heard above the rushing wind. “You said you couldn’t fly!”

“I was out of practice. Couldn’t risk hurting you.”

They rose higher and higher, into the clouds. At the apex of their flight, the dragon turned so its momentum would hold them in place, hovering with its wings spread. Bolts of golden fire exploded through the sky around them. The dragon turned and dropped, rolling to avoid being hit. It looked back, eyes wide at the flying attackers closing in on them.

“They can fly, too?”

“Some. Where are you taking me?”

“To safety, I hope.”

“No! I have to get back to the Prince—he’s the only one who can free me!”

Ellie was still trailing globes of white energy behind her. One of the fliers collided with the stream and disintegrated into a cloud of spreading dust.

“I’ve waited too long! It has to end today!”

The dragon dove, sweeping around a tower, letting the structure take the flier’s bolts. It dug in with its claws, and let the fliers zip past them unaware, then brought Ellie up to its level so they could talk in a more civilized fashion.

“Revenge is never the answer, Ellie. Killing the Prince will get you nothing.”

“It will free me. You don’t know, you can’t imagine what it’s like.”

“No? You freed yourself, didn’t you? And what he did to you, it’s what his kind does. You could no more blame the lion for stalking the gazelle.”