Winterstrike (24 page)

‘Shorn!’ I shouted. ‘Over there!’

A gully ran alongside the encampment, one of the dry waterways that crossed the Crater Plain. In winter, they were prone to flash floods and I was not enthusiastic about going down there; we
kept high on the bank of the gully, slipping and sliding on the loose shale, but heading away from the camp and the fire. A burning figure stumbled in front of me and I cried out, before realizing
it was a ghost. A moment later, it was gone. Shorn was shaking. As we followed the twists and turns of the gully, she said, ‘We’re heading back to the tower.’

‘I know. But there’s nowhere else to go.’ I glanced back to where the gully was blocked with washed-down boulders. It was upstream or nothing.

Shorn said urgently, ‘What if Mantis is there? Where did she go?’

‘I don’t know, Shorn.’ I couldn’t tell whether she asked out of fright or longing, or perhaps both. ‘Did she say anything to you, about moving between
times?’

She shook her head. ‘She didn’t say much about that. Only about what we were.’

There were voices up ahead, speaking low and urgently. Shorn and I crept between the boulders, keeping low. I wasn’t even sure whether we could be seen, but I didn’t want to take any
chances. We drew nearer to the voices.

‘Where is she? Where has she gone?’ I felt Shorn’s cold fingers close around my own and I clasped her hand as we crouched in the lee of a boulder.

‘I don’t know.’

‘They’re talking about me,’ Shorn hissed.

‘You don’t know that. I went missing too. Now be quiet.’

The voice was frantic. ‘If she’s decided to go out there – you know how she is.’

‘She’s mad, not stupid.’

There’s a difference?’

‘She’s here.’ The voice was strident, and it came from above us. I squinted up to see an armoured figure standing on the summit of the boulder, legs braced. She carried a
haunt-bow, which hummed and sang to itself. A black plume fluttered from her helmet, caught by the night breeze, and in the light of the moon her armour was the colour of blood. I could not see her
face. She raised the bow. Something spat over the rocks. The second figure in the shadows of the tower cried out and reeled back, clutching at her face. The first speaker melted back into the
shadows: a wise move, I thought. This had to be Mantis the Original. She leaped down from the boulder, landing a few feet in front of us. A glance over her shoulder revealed a pair of glinting
black eyes in the depths of the helmet, but she gave no indication that she’d seen us. I held Shorn firmly by the arm, all the same. She was skittish enough to do something foolish.

‘Matriarch—’ the soldier faltered. Mantis walked straight past her and said, ‘So, they want a siege, do they? Then let’s give them a siege.’

A black gaping hole opened in the side of the tower. A voice, unexpected, said into my ear, ‘Go in.’ I turned to see the spectral shape of the Library, ghostly pale and
insubstantial, by my shoulder.

‘You’re joking. What for?’

‘I’ve just remembered,’ the Library said, ‘that there’s something in there I want to take a look at.’

Inside, the tower was much as it was in its future incarnation, but with more tapestries. Battles appeared to be a dominant theme, and hunting. But one of them, hanging from
floor to ceiling, depicted Earth: a lovely, luminous globe, worked in silver and blue. I saw Mantis’s gauntleted hand flick out as she passed it in a gesture that might have been
superstition, or might simply have indicated greed. Shorn and I followed her up a flight of stairs, surrounded by her fluttering lieutenants, and into what was evidently some kind of war room.
Narrow slits of windows showed fires across the plain.

‘This will not do,’ Mantis hissed. She turned to the woman on her left, an older, pinched face under a helmet that did not fit properly. ‘Why isn’t it working?’

‘I told you, Mantis.’ The woman sounded weary, and I noticed that she hadn’t added Mantis’s honorific. ‘The engine isn’t configured properly. It’s too
old.’

‘It’s got to work.’ Mantis reached up and took off her helmet. She looked, of course, like the woman I’d met, but could have been anywhere from twenty to sixty, all bone
and pale parched skin. ‘You said you could make it work.’ The plaintive tone of a small child with a broken toy, it reminded me of Shorn. I didn’t envy the inhabitants of the
tower, having this for a commanding officer.

‘When we found it, you remember, it was in pieces. We’ve done well to make it reach the point that it has. I can’t do any more.’

‘It needs more blood, then,’ Mantis insisted. ‘Take the captives in the lower dungeon. Feed them into it.’

‘More won’t mean better,’ the lieutenant said. But from the look on Mantis’s face, I didn’t think she particularly cared.

It was not a process that I liked to watch, but for the sake of the Library we followed Mantis to the engine room. This lay at the heart of the tower, and I thought it might be the cavern that
now formed the fighting pit, in which case the engine had long since been dismantled. From the look of the thing, it was Nightshade-made and very old: its sides were pitted and scorched and it
still bore the uncanny alphabet of its native world along its sides. A huge thing, blackened, with stumps and spires and wires jutting out from its sides like something assembled by a deranged
inventor. It hummed, like Mantis’s bow, and unlike most haunt-tech, which had the sense of death, I had the inexplicable impression that it was alive, just as, in some manner, the Library was
alive. And with that thought, I turned to the Library herself and mouthed a question.

‘Why are we here?’

The Library was staring intently at the engine. She pointed a mailed finger at it, like someone casting a spell, and the engine’s hum grew to a sudden roar. Across the room Mantis spun
around, open-mouthed. I saw a spark of light flicker from the engine to the Library’s finger.

‘What did it do then?’ Mantis demanded.

‘I don’t know.’ The adviser looked baffled. I shot a glance of enquiry at the Library but her face was intent and preoccupied. Mantis gave an angry shrug and turned away.

‘Set them up.’

We watched in silence as three pinch-faced women were brought from the dungeons and strapped into a blacklight matrix: a primitive device by modern standards, bearing great coils and curlicues
of ebony and silver wire. A flickering array of circuitry lay behind it, sending spiral messages across its face. The women made no sound as they were strapped in, though their eyes burned as they
stared balefully in the direction of Mantis. I wondered why they didn’t speak. Perhaps they couldn’t.

The matrix crackled into life and at the beginning of the array, the first woman’s head snapped backwards, straining against the array. She died quickly; I felt her spirit go into the
haunt-engine. The second one took longer and I did not want to watch; I turned away. Mantis seemed to lose interest, and with a click of the fingers left the rest of the work to her advisers. She
strode from the chamber and I followed. The Library lingered for a moment, then came behind.

Mantis went upwards, climbing a spiral stair with rapid, clicking steps. She reminded me of a large insect; some kind of ticking wall beetle. As she passed along a narrow corridor, she began
stripping off her armour: first the helmet, then the band which confined her hair and made it look as though her forehead was striped with blood, then the breastplate, until when she reached a door
at the end of the room she wore only a series of body straps, breeches and boots, rather like an excissiere. Her skin was very pale, almost a luminous blue in the dim light, and looked hard in
texture.

A demothea cross-breed. I could believe it, watching her now.

She stepped out into fresh air. The sudden breath of it on my skin was startling, after the confinement of the fortress. I sidled after her, and gasped.

The dreadnought was hanging in the air above the fortress. I’d last seen it sailing over the Noumenon, and before that, careering down the length of the Grand Channel. The faces of the
drowning women were still with me, as though the dreadnought carried the souls of its victims with it, like barnacles. Perhaps it did.

It looked exactly the same: beetle-green in the moonlight, with its emplacements dangling and coiling from it, as if whipped by a wind that I couldn’t feel. Mantis was shouting something
but her words were lost in the roar from the dreadnought.

A ladder was falling down from the bottom of the craft. Mantis ran forward, leaped as it struck the battlements of the turret with a rattle. Down on the plain, someone was firing, but the bolts
fell well short of the dreadnought’s flanks, harmless as pinpricks from this distance. Mantis seized the base of the ladder and was hauled up into the sky: the dreadnought was already lifting
up, blacklight sparkling across its sides and shorting out down the firing path of one of the bolts. Down on the plain, I saw a flicker-burst of darkness and there came a cry.

Above the dreadnought, a crack was opening up in the air. The dreadnought was heading straight for it and it was reaching down to us: this was what it was like to journey through haunt-space,
when you’re faced with the moment of your death and then falling into it. I’d only done it once, and never between worlds. Behind me, I heard Shorn cry out and realized that she’d
joined us on the battlements. There was a flash, so bright that I cast my arm across my eyes, and then I was stumbling. Shorn and I were thrown against the side of the battlements and when I was
able to see again, we’d moved. We were still on the summit of the turret, but it was once again ruined. Something was falling down through the afternoon sky, travelling meteor-fast. It was a
ship, but it wasn’t the dreadnought. It went down behind a spire of rock and I braced myself for an explosion, but none came. There was a thin, high whine and a distant thud, sending up a
cloud of dust. I wanted to get off the tower: if we were back in our own time, that meant Mantis and the vulpen weren’t far away. I motioned to Shorn and she followed me down the metal-runged
ladder that picked its way across the ancient stone. I felt we were going round in circles: up and down, round and round through time, like some nonsensical game. But I was glad all the same when
my feet touched rock and the turret once again towered above me. In its lee, with Shorn at my heels, I made my way to the rocks and looked down.

The ship was small, unfamiliar, and bulbous. It sat in a bowl of dust, surrounded by the rocks. I leaned further over and paused. Directly below me stood a figure. Next moment, I grinned. Time
to repay a score. I dropped lightly down the few feet that separated the ledges and snapped an arm around the figure’s neck. She jerked, but I was holding her fast.

‘Surprise!’

Rubirosa sagged slightly in my grip.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ the marauder said. Shorn’s timid face appeared over the edge of rock.

‘Hestia?’

Rubirosa looked sharply up. ‘Who’s that?’

‘My cousin.’

‘Ah.’ The marauder’s expression grew sharper and my suspicions blossomed into life, like weedwood flowers. ‘Wasn’t coincidence, was it? You descending on
Peto’s boat? And I’d put good money on there never having been a bomb.’

It was, it appeared, the marauder’s turn to grin. ‘Peto’s . . . an agent. She wasn’t sent to pick you up, though. Took a day or so for her to realize who she’d got
on board her boat.’

An agent? Of whom?’

‘Of the Noumenon.’

‘Peto?’ I’m rarely accused of naïveté, and few things surprised me any more, but that struck me as incongruous, somehow.

‘Not a willing one,’ Rubirosa said. ‘She was coerced. The Noumenon might seem to keep themselves to themselves, but they’ve got long tentacles and a long reach. When I
found out, I came along for the ride.’

‘But I saw you fall—’ I stopped. I knew better than this. I’d seen someone fall. Rubirosa’s knowing smile told me the truth.

‘So if you’re not a pirate – who are you?’

‘Who said I’m not a pirate?’ Rubirosa asked. ‘I’m for hire. For the moment, I’m working for Gennera Khine.’ The shock of that name hit me as though
someone had thrown icy water in my face. The marauder was working for Gennera, who had commissioned Shorn’s making, according to my cousin. Had Gennera told Rubirosa about Shorn?

The marauder looked up at Shorn, who had come a little way over the lip of the rock and now stood on a ledge, listening. ‘So that’s the missing cousin. Looks like you found
her.’ I couldn’t detect anything except mild curiosity in her voice.

‘Found a lot else, as well.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you worked for Gennera?’

‘I wanted to see what you’d do,’ Rubirosa said. ‘Wasn’t sure you could be trusted, to be honest. Don’t take it personally. Anyway, Gennera’s arranged
transport. We’re going back to Win-terstrike.’

‘Very well,’ I said. I didn’t buy her explanation for a moment. It was surely Gennera who didn’t trust me, who had sent Rubirosa to spy on her spy. Rubirosa turned and
headed for the ship.

‘She’s working for the majike,’ Shorn hissed over my shoulder. ‘I heard her say so.’

‘Try and trust me,’ I said. Shorn wavered, but I gripped her hand. ‘I’ll get you out of here,’ I said. I found I’d made a decision. ‘And we’re not
going back to Winterstrike, either.’

Rubirosa was settling herself into the pilot’s seat when I clambered on board the little craft, with Shorn behind me. I struck the marauder once, behind the ear. She crumpled over the
console and with Shorn watching, her expression unreadable, I took the ship up and into the hills.

EIGHTEEN

After the Queen’s disappearance, I was immediately confined. I spent the evening chafing against the bolted door and picking at the latches of the little window. Halfway
through this process, without any warning, we started moving again. It was growing dark, and eventually the lights came on amongst the refugee caravan. My fidgeting with the window latch was
finally rewarded by a breath of cold air underneath the pane: I tore at it with my nails until it gave way. Catching the pane before it banged against the sill, I glanced round. There was no sign
of Shurr or the others. I hauled myself up onto the sill and squeezed through the window, dropping to the ground. It was further than I expected. I landed with a grunt and a gasp, but the ground
was solid underneath my feet; curious how accustomed I’d become to the swaying, shifting vehicle in the short time I’d been incarcerated in it. Still no one, and I ran – but
around the corner of the caravan, I came face to face with Shurr.