Tinker's Justice (36 page)

Rynn replied by firing two more shots, aiming at the wall where she guessed Danilaesis hid on the far side. With a shaking hand, she loaded replacement shots into the back of the weapon. Six shots total. She needed a full complement.

“Fine, no need to be terse about it,” Danilaesis called around the corner. Clearly her shots had missed.

When Danilaesis peeked around the corner again, he was crouched low. Her shot went wide as an unseen force tugged at the barrel of her coil gun. Danilaesis grinned, staring right into her eyes from ten paces away. Then he unleashed the lightning.

Rynn fell back against the wall, twitching, watching spots swim before her eyes. The force tugging at her coil gun vanished, but her arm was limp. Smoke rose from the world-ripper machine, which must have shared the blast with her.

“You idiot tinkers and making everything metal,” Danilaesis said. Rynn closed her eyes, listening as he approached. “I can’t even miss with lightning if I tried.”

A guttural phrase, filled with clicks and glottal stops, came from the corner of the room. Rynn heard the rush of flame and felt warmth on her face. She peeked one eye open and saw a wash of fire wrapping itself around a shielding spell that protected the warlock.

“You sniveling goblin scum,” Danilaesis said with a sneer. He turned and flung another blast of lightning; she couldn’t see where it connected.

But Danilaesis was distracted. Rynn raised her arm, still tingling from the spark’s aftereffects. Her first shot glanced off Danilaesis’s shielding spell. He turned to face her. The second caught him square in the chest, launching him across the room to strike the wall with a hollow, metallic thump. The third caught him in the forehead and went through. The fourth, fifth, and sixth were just for good measure.

Rynn drew herself unsteadily to her feet, buoyed by the mechanical stabilizers in her tinker’s legs. She walked across to Danilaesis’s body and looked down at the horrifying mass of burst flesh she had caused. She held her coil gun trained on him, on the chance it was all some trick of light and magic.

“I think he’s dead,” K’k’rt said. The goblin tinker wobbled as he made his way beside her. “No need to reload.”

Rynn nodded. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She turned toward the world-ripper, but stopped short. The machine had been on a moment before, idle but humming with spark energy. Now, it was lifeless—just like she was about to be.

Just then, a world-hole opened, free from any viewframe on her end. The hole shuddered in the air … as if someone were trying to hold it steady as the
Jennai
dropped from the sky! Rynn had been right, they
were
losing altitude.

“Grab hold,” Greuder yelled from the far side, extending a hand. The scene beyond was a mass of miserable humanity, with wounded soldiers and refugees crowded in throughout the main chamber of the lunar headquarters. There was a story there, but one that would wait for less pressing times.

Rynn wrapped one arm around K’k’rt, and reached up to take the offered hand. Her coil gun clattered to the ground as the old twinborn baker pulled her to safety.

Madlin let loose a long sigh, and eased her hand away from the switch. In the little viewframe of her hideaway within Tellurak’s moon, she watched Danilaesis’s body drift down, along with the rest of the
Jennai
. The airship passed through her field of view until she was looking down on it from above. It hit the Sea of Kerum with a force the World Ender Cannon might have envied if the weapon were not the first part of the ship that hit. The splash must have launched a hundred feet into the air. It took time for the hull to sink below the water, folding up and breaking apart as impact damage and the might of the sea itself wrecked the rebellion’s months of work.

Switching inputs on the viewframe, Madlin turned her head lest she be blinded by the light. With the twist of a dial, she sent the view to the harmless void between worlds. It was no longer set to watch Korr’s sun from the inside. Rynn was safe. Danilaesis was dead. She had not been forced to flip the switch and find out what would have happened if she brought the sun to the
Jennai
.

Chapter 25

“My greatest worry in this whole rebellion business is that Madlin’s going to do something brave and stupid, and get herself killed.” – Cadmus Errol

The tunnels looked different, which Cadmus took as a good sign. But there was still no Kezudkan, which limited the extent to how pleased any tunnel could make him. He had long suspected the daruu had some sense of innate navigation, some feel in the stone that was akin to constellations or the position of the sun for telling north from east. But he was no daruu, so his suspicion that they had not traveled far at all from the world-ripper room remained nothing but speculation. It was time to put the premise to empirical test.

Still holding the gun pointed at Gederon’s back, Cadmus pulled out his pocketclock and opened the face with a flick of the wrist. “You’ve got five more minutes,” he said. “After that, I kill you and take the chance that I can find him quicker without you leading me astray.”

“I’m n-n-not misleading you.”

“Four minutes, fifty-six seconds.”

“B-but it’s going to take m-more than five m-m-minutes to get there,” Gederon protested.

“Then pump those stubby pistons of yours faster,” Kupe snapped. “He’s running out of patience with you.” He winked at Cadmus while the daruu wasn’t looking.

Gederon quickened his pace, and before long he was breathing hard. Cadmus sneered, marveling that his younger body was holding up to the rigors of the search better than a lazy daruu.

There was no door, when they arrived, just an opening in the side of the tunnel. Gederon stopped and pointed silently, but Cadmus could already hear the voices within the chamber. He waggled the gun in Gederon’s direction, indicating that the daruu lad lead the way.

As they approached, Cadmus could pick up the conversation. “I just think that we’d be better off if—Gederon, what are you doing down here?” Kezudkan asked as Gederon appeared in the entrance.

Cadmus stepped up behind the young daruu, still training his gun at Gederon’s back. “Hello, Kezudkan. Surprised to see me?” The room was filled with daruu, dressed in strange, metallic clothing made of fine rings. They looked important, though he recognized none of them.

“Erefan,” Kezudkan breathed, his eyed widening. “You’re … you can’t be here.”

“But I am, and it’s time for—blast it, none of you move.” Cadmus aimed the gun at a brawny daruu reaching for an axe that dangled from his belt—the only weapon he could see in the room besides his own. “I’m here for Kezudkan Graniteson. This doesn’t involve the rest of you.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here,” Kezudkan said. “Just put the gun down and we can talk. Just leave the boy alone.”

“I’ve got no quarrel with your nephew—yes, I remembered him,” Cadmus said. “But I just want everyone here to know why I’m here, and that this doesn’t have to end with a lot of bodies to clean up.”

“You’re a thief, a runaway, and a murderer,” Kezudkan said. “Why should any of us believe you?”

One of the younger daruu in the room, the one dressed most extravagantly, stepped between Kezudkan and Cadmus. “I am Dekulon, king of the daruu people. I cannot allow you to harm one of my subjects.”

“Even a criminal?” Cadmus asked.

“He had broken no laws among our people,” King Dekulon replied. “If you have a pre-existing quarrel—”

“Quarrel?” Cadmus scoffed. “He tried to kill me!” He wanted to shout that Kezudkan
had
killed him, but that would have muddied the waters more than cleared them. “I’m going to have my justice, whether it’s given to me or I have to take it. Now, step aside.”

King Dekulon shook his head. “I cannot.”

“Erefan,” Kezudkan said. “Let’s be reasona—”

Click
.

Crack!

The shot went through King Dekulon and Kezudkan both. So did the second shot. By the third, the two daruu had fallen in separate directions, and Cadmus only cared to ensure that Kezudkan was dead.

The room erupted into chaos. Cadmus’s attack had shocked them all—probably because no one had ever dared attack their king before. Two of the daruu rushed to the king’s aid; the one with the axe took the weapon in hand and rushed for him; the eldest daruu began muttering something that had a suspicious sound to it—magic.

Cadmus dealt first with the threat he best understood, planting a shot in the head of the daruu with the axe and dropping him to the ground with a thump just a pace away. He fired another shot that took the rune-hurler square in the chest, but it struck a barrier that flashed blue and flattened the steel ball bearing. The rune-hurler seemed unharmed, but flustered, stumbling over his words and feet at the same time as he backed away. Not to be deterred, Cadmus fired a second shot at the rune-hurler, and a weaker flash from the barrier was not enough to turn aside the shot. The rune-hurler collapsed against a wall, not dead, but no longer a threat.

The surprise was Gederon. The stutter-mouthed daruu lad had stood bolted to the floor to that point. But something inside him must have snapped free. He whirled on Cadmus with a speed seldom seen in daruu. The Mad Tinker fell back and fired again.

Click.

There was no shot left. In the excitement, Cadmus had not kept count. He should have dealt with the threats before him and reloaded to finish off Kezudkan. It might even have been a chance to gloat; he had felt so clever disposing of his nemesis without bothering with melodrama, but pure ruthlessness had an impractical side to it as well. Kezudkan had been no real threat.

Gederon was. The daruu lad closed the two-pace distance to Cadmus in a heartbeat. He struck like a trolley with no brakeman, bowling Cadmus over and driving him to the ground. The Mad Tinker slammed to the floor, his head cracking against the unforgiving stone. He blinked out of consciousness for just a second, coming around just in time to see a heavy fist bearing down toward his face. After that, there was no waking up.

Kaia and Greuder made frantic efforts to direct the two working world-rippers around the
Jennai
as it sank into the Sea of Kerum. The main chamber of the lunar headquarters was splashed with seawater and so crowded with people that rebel refugees were stumbling over the wounded. The able-bodied stood stationed at the viewframes, ready to haul survivors into the crowded confines.

Rynn found herself, for the first time she could remember, surrounded by rebels who weren’t looking to her for answers. They jostled and pushed, trying to keep out of her way as she made her way to the main world-ripper, which was the only one of the three that was idle. Most people who ended up beside her asked after her health, or expressed relief that she had made it.

“Why isn’t this one on?” Rynn shouted over the general commotion.

“Blame your father for that,” Greuder shouted back, though Rynn had lost sight of him at the control console of the upstream world-ripper. “He shot out the spark line, and we haven’t had a chance to fix it.”

If that wasn’t a call for Rynn’s services, she didn’t know what was. “Why would he do that?” she called out as she moved to inspect the damage.

“He was after that daruu, hot for blood. We sent Kupe to drag him back, but the lad got stuck on the other side with him.”

“Eziel, you rat bastard,” Rynn swore. “You’d better not have …” she didn’t finish the thought. “Greuder, let Kaia finish the rescue from the ship. I need that world-ripper.”

“But Rynn,” Jamile shouted. Rynn couldn’t see her, but imagined that she must be with the wounded. “There are still people trapped on board.”

Rynn gritted her teeth. One life—two if Kupe counted—against however many might still be alive and trapped in the sinking airship. How could she ask that? How could she demand that? She could order it. She was still in charge. They would understand.

She still couldn’t do it. “Fine. Keep up the search.”

Rynn shoved her way roughly through the crowd, which couldn’t part fast enough for her liking. “Any mechanics around, get over here. I’ve got a machine to repair.”

Kupe huddled with his back to the tunnel wall, coil gun pointed at the entrance. He had heard it all and was no fool. Cadmus Errol was probably dead. A bunch of daruu were likely dead as well, but not all of them. The coil gun shook in his hand. He couldn’t go look.

“Stay back!” he shouted as a daruu stuck his head out to look down the corridor. “You all stay right where you’re at. I’ll stay out here. Don’t you come closer or I’ll blow so many … I’ll shoot you up good.”

Kupe squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. What he wouldn’t have given for a drink right then. He’d shoot straighter with the tunnel a bit wobbly than with his hands shaking like he was holding a steam hammer. Some hero he was. The tinker that had helped set the Human Rebellion to boiling had needed him, and he was stuck to the floor with his own glue.

“Put down your weapon and surrender,” a steady, bass voice called from within the chamber.

“Ain’t gonna,” Kupe replied. “They’re gonna come for me … well, come for him at least. I’m gonna get rescued, and you’re in a heap of scrap when they get here.”

A thump rumbled through the floor, accompanied by a scuffing sound. The thump repeated, became a rhythm, but not a steady beat. One of the barefoot daruu was stomping a signal. Kupe wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or if he was smarter than he gave himself credit for, but he was in no position to run. He needed them to find him. If he ran off, there was no telling whether the rebels would get to him before the daruu, or even if they would keep looking once they found Cadmus. Kupe had to be realistic—he wasn’t that important.

To his surprise, when the world-hole opened, it was right beside him. Rynn was standing there with a look of fury in her eyes. “Grab him,” she ordered.

A pair of soldiers hooked Kupe under the arms and pulled him through to safety. The area just in front of the viewframe was packed with soldiers, all armed, all with their weapons pointed out into Veydrus. Kupe was dragged out of the way, but he had as good a view as anyone of what was about to come.

The viewframe moved, advancing at Rynn’s command into the room where her father had died. Kupe saw the body, face bloody and misshapen, lying on the stone. The young daruu Gederon knelt over a daruu body, shoulders heaving in silent sobs. His hands were bloody.

There were plenty of daruu bodies. It looked like Cadmus had taken four of them down before they got him. Kupe didn’t recognize any of them, nor had he expected to. These weren’t Korrish daruu, the sort of folks who made the newspapers with flashpops at the opening of museums and the fluff pieces about quadricentennial birthdays. These were foreigners, otherworldly, only their language familiar.

“Who are you people? Who are you to have invaded our home and attacked our king?” one of the daruu asked, stepping forward.

With enough coil guns to add a screen door to the chamber, Rynn must have felt safe enough to parley. “Kezudkan Graniteson took my father as a slave, buying him in return for my mother’s freedom and mine,” she replied. “You harbored him. I don’t know what happened here, but if you involved yourselves in my father’s conflict, it is your own doing. Which one of you is responsible for
this
?” Rynn pointed at her father’s body.

“He killed my uncle!” Gederon shouted, turning his attention from the elderly daruu’s corpse. “Shot him, clean through the king, who’d done an honorable thing to shield him. He was a madman.”

Kupe watched Rynn’s face. The knit of her brow, the clenching in her jaw, that raw hatred in her eyes. She didn’t want to shoot the daruu, he realized. She wanted to bash his head in with her bare hands.