Nightwatch over windscar, p.32
Nightwatch over Windscar, page 32
“Yes, Captain. Dodri does not know.”
“Understood. Do you want to tell her or—”
—and then Dodri’s voice burst through the comms in Iari’s helmet, and Dodri’s biometrics lit up. “—tain? Do you hear me?”
Oh blessed Elements. “I’m here. Report.”
She got Dodri’s version, significantly less compact than Char’s. Iari let her talk. She reckoned a young corporal needed that reassurance that she wasn’t alone in command. That whatever went sideways from here, it wasn’t her fault.
Oh no. It’s all mine.
Terrible fucking plan, all the way.
By the time she and Char got to Dodri’s position on the northern ridge, Iari knew that the camp was on high alert. That Fergil, of all fucking people, had managed to drag himself over the slagging ridge and far enough down the hill that one of the perimeter patrols had noticed him. Then the alarm had gone up, which had involved a siren and all the floodlamps coming on, and a mass gathering of what appeared to be everyone—even the byre’s residents—under the mess tent.
(Iari could hear that situation herself right now, trickling through the ex-comms. Chanting, raggedy and enthusiastic, like it was a stadium full of spectators at an innebande match. Ax-or-chal. Merciful Mishka.)
Corso (Dodri said) had gotten himself to the shed, gotten the door open—and retreated. And then he’d gone for the yurt with the altar (Iari had sworn, hearing that. What in five vakari hells was he thinking?) and been caught on the threshold by Geltrannen.
“She took him east,” Dodri said. “Behind the farmhouse, behind the other yurt, like she was trying not to be seen. They went into that last line of tents. She’s got a weapon on him—Winter Bite thinks it’s a monofil—and he’s not fighting back.”
“You see which tent?”
“First one on the right. First one in the row.” Dodri’s voice was anxious. “I didn’t want to break cover to interfere.”
“You did right.”
Iari amped the magnification on her HUD, like that would help at all. Just a tent. Corso was definitely in trouble. But—she switched focus—he’d also left the shed door ajar. She could see the broken padlock. And there was that voidspit altar—
“Captain,” said Winter Bite. He had his appendages extended. “Movement at the altar-yurt.”
Huh. Look at that: two tenju came out, holding a crate suspended from two long metal poles. Looked heavy: the poles bowed toward the crate, and the crate itself barely cleared the snow. And behind them, a beat later: a figure emerged, tall even from this distance. Robed, or maybe just a long coat: something skirted, anyway, that hid their legs. No hood, no hat; long dark braids glittering with hooks hung down their back. They wore a single metal glove. An asymmetrical helmet, more elaborate than the others Iari had seen. Probably a cabochon on the front, masquerading as an eye.
Oh, just guess who this neefa was.
Insurgents with delusions of godhood. Small wonder their wichu allies had balked. The wichu as a people did not trust religion, having long memory of life under the Protectorate’s orthodoxy. They didn’t trust the Aedis for that same reason, for all that they worked alongside it—and those were the Confederation wichu. The insurgents like Jich’e’enfe might’ve thought it was smart to fight religion with more fanatics, but someone claiming actual godhood might have changed their mind.
But someone had to have trained this Axorchal mock-up in arithmancy. The godhood wasn’t real. The skill was. Jich’e’enfe might’ve taught him, but this kind of skill—the kind that Jich’e’enfe had possessed, the kind Gaer had—that took years. More than a handful of years, anyway.
The hexes on Winter Bite’s outstretched appendage began to glow, first faintly, then furiously red. So when he said, “The altar is in that crate,” Iari was not surprised.
But: “Gaer said you couldn’t move portals around.”
“It does not feel like a portal,” said Winter Bite.
“Can you be more specific?”
“No . . .” Winter Bite cranked his head around to look at Char.
Who said, “It feels more like the altar in B-town, when it was in B-town. Not like it felt in the ruins.”
“So more like it’s going to open a Brood fissure than operate a portal,” Iari said, for Dodri’s benefit.
The situation had been urgent. Now it was just getting worse. She’d counted on Corso to help rescue Luki and Llian while she handled the altar.
But now . . .
“Char, I need you to get down to that camp there and start wrecking things. Let’s interrupt whatever Axorchal’s up to in the tent. Dodri, once Char’s engaged, you and I are going to see if we can retrieve Luki and Llian. Once we have them—Dodri, you bring them up here, to Winter Bite. Get someone in Corso’s rig. Then get out. All of you fall back to Windscar. You do not wait for us. You go. Is that clear? I’ll go see about Corso.”
“Yes sir.” Dodri didn’t sound happy.
“You want me to wait here?” Winter Bite didn’t either.
“You’ve got perspective. You keep”—Iari waved at his appendages—“those on alert. Help Char avoid any mobs. Guide them. If it all goes bad—you get out, your judgment, and make sure word gets to Keawe. Any questions?”
Dodri audibly clipped off asking how Winter Bite would guide Char. Which, fine, it was a fair question, but now wasn’t the time.
“No, Captain.” Winter Bite sounded happier.
“No, sir.” Dodri didn’t.
“Captain.” Char made it both acknowledgement and query.
“Go,” Iari told them. “Break things.”
“Yes.” And Char melted away, entirely too fast and too quietly for someone as big as they were.
Then it was wait, wait, until a dull boom rolled across the base camp. It sounded like one of those round metal drums Iari had heard a million times at one of Gaer’s live music events, the kind that shivered through your guts and bones.
Or like the sound a power cell might make if it ruptured. The southernmost floodlamp died.
But then—nothing happened. One minute, two . . . slagging nothing. There seemed to be very few people still moving around. Everyone really did seem to be in that mess tent.
That seemed bad. Blood powered altars. If everyone was in there—that was a lot of blood.
Iari’s guts fell. She swallowed dust and asked, “Winter Bite? What are they doing?”
The hexes on his appendages were steadily, furiously red now. “I believe the altar is no longer crated. Its aetheric presence is much stronger. There are also new fluctuations in the aether which are not like a portal, but which I can otherwise not identify. Perhaps they are a fissure. Also, there is chanting. A single name. Axorchal. The chant commenced when the arithmancer entered the tent. The spike in aetheric activity began shortly thereafter.”
Iari wished again (forever) for Gaer. “Is there any response from anyone to what Char’s doing?”
“Very little. The perimeter guards nearest that floodlamp are responding, but they are not moving with urgency.”
“Probably think it’s just a blown generator.” Generators were hexed to avoid catastrophic explosions, but still, someone should’ve noticed. Blame the nominal daylight, when the absence of floodlamps wasn’t a crisis. Blame shit discipline.
Iari stood, glad of the rig’s support. She was tired. Nothing like real sleep for days now, just the syn holding her upright. Dodri, at least, had gotten some rest up here (had admitted it, looking guilty). She had hoped for mayhem to make a distraction. At least for that mess tent to empty out a little. At least for the other three quadrants’ patrols to move toward Char’s position. She didn’t doubt the battle-rigs’ ability to get her and Dodri down that very steep hill fast and intact. But getting back up, especially with wounded . . . Iari looked at Corso’s battle-rig, which she and Char had brought back from the stash-point. She was counting on Luki to be healthy enough to wear that slagging thing. If Luki wasn’t—
The second floodlamp popped, this one on the eastern quadrant: boom and a burst of sparks just like the last one. This time Iari could actually see the perimeter guards react; one set began running (jogging, really) toward the second floodlamp, which suddenly exploded in a fireball that ignited the pole and everything else in a couple meters’ radius.
Dodri let out a little whoop.
Time to go.
“Move,” Iari said, and then led by example.
Don’t die, Corso, you neefa. I’m coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Gaer perched on the wall of the Windscar Aedis, partly because he could do so unescorted (that surprised him) and partly because it meant anyone wanting to talk to him had to work for the privilege. That was almost certainly why Keawe hadn’t come up here yet (and not that she had nothing to say to him). Certainly why Tobin hadn’t. Which was unfair: Tobin absolutely would climb to the top of Aedis walls if he needed a conversation. He clearly did not.
But if Gaer were honest with at least himself, he was up here to do what he’d come to this voidspit planet to do in the first place: observe the fissure. He was—no, he had been—an ambassador officially, but part of those duties—again, officially—had included his expertise as an arithmancer. That had been the setatir draw of this miserable planet. A fissure to observe firsthand. The whole jagged, fractured line of it, with its offshoots and its tendrils. It—that fissure—had made the rest of this hinterlands posting bearable.
Until Iari. That, she—he had not expected a friendship. Not with a templar at all, much less that templar, who preferred cats to people and for all her reverence for Jareth’s Meditations did not seem to understand that fear was a necessary component of courage. He had fretted (briefly, when he’d imagined a posting after B-town’s Aedis) that he would miss her and her long-suffering escort around B-town’s deficient nightlife. (Would she miss him? Ah, hard to say. Probably. She might name a cat after him.) His seconding to the Aedis had seemed, if not permanent, at least a way to prolong their association.
Now she was going to get herself setatir killed, and there was no setatir point in being here if she was not.
Which was why he’d asked Notch to come see him: to collect on those promised thanks and leverage them into actual, useful action. Gaer wanted Iari back alive. That, and because this way, Notch had to climb a great many stairs. That was a little bit unkind on the surface (and a part of Gaer reveled in that), but it was also a firsthand opportunity to see how his newly evolved nanomecha were working. If Notch collapsed on the stairs, then Gaer had been wrong, and Jich’e’enfe was still the better arithmancer, even dead.
(If Notch collapsed on the stairs, Iffy would march up and throw Gaer off the wall herself.)
And here Notch came now, out of the hospice doors—Iffy having wrangled a discharge, Gaer wasn’t sure how. (Trust me, she’d said, and he had.) The lieutenant clomped across the courtyard, past Rishi’s now-righted bulk. The aethership’s repulsor coils glowed with dim power sufficient to keep her upright. The gangplank stretched down from the primary hatch, though the hatch itself was closed. Rishi could get to the k’bal ruins in half the time it would take a hopper. Rishi could get to the altar’s last known coordinates in about that same time.
Where Iari must be, by now, and probably up to her chin in trouble. And hexes. She had Char and Winter Bite, sure, and Corso, fine, but they weren’t arithmancers.
Notch went into the stair-tower, and Gaer turned his attention over the wall, to the north. The Weep fissure was visible tonight, though not to a naked eye. A wall of clouds stood across the northern horizon, significantly closer than the fissure, blocking the view. It looked like another of Windscar’s ubiquitous storms. It also looked like that storm had stalled out over what Gaer’s consultations with local maps told him was a small valley that, come spring, would spawn a few run-off creeks until the snow melted. There had been (this was according to an older atlas, attached to a land survey attached to an archive from the surge) a farmstead up there, some wealthy neefa-herder who’d refused to evacuate. A flyover afterward hadn’t shown signs of life, and neither Aedis nor army nor locals had sufficient personnel to investigate further.
Gaer relied on his optic to see the Weep, where see meant a march of numbers that described its emanations through all the aetheric layers. Right now the permanent fissure was currently very active. That was not unheard of, or even particularly unusual; Brood crawled out every so often, after all. That was the reason for Aedis compounds and their watchtowers, for patrols and drones.
Nor were all Weep emanations created equal. This batch didn’t look like the kind that made extra Brood. This batch was more concentrated in the deep layers of the aether, the ones Gaer had learned through hard (scarring) experience linked Brood-layers and void. If he had to guess—these emanations were related to little fissures opening up. Or having been opened, if he was especially optimistic and conservative (neither by nature) and attributed all Weep-associated disturbance to the arithmancer and the altar in the ruins, with all this activity being just after-effects.
The tower door banged open with deliberate force. The templars lining the walls—more of them, since Rishi’s arrival—that were closest to that door looked, but without much alarm. They lost interest immediately when they recognized Notch.
Gaer cycled his optic from look at the Weep to look at that templar and adjusted the magnification. He could not see Aedian nanomecha at work. But he could see Notch’s aura just fine—sunset hues, mostly, there was nothing settled or content about Notch—and it glittered and flickered like Iari’s. All Aedian auras glittered with nanomecha and arithmancy; Iari’s was more, and now Notch’s was, too. And Notch was moving like someone fully recovered. Long strides, boots stomping down like the stones had offended him. He wore regular armor, not a battle-rig, like templars did in B-town, and unlike every other templar Gaer could see around him, on the walls or in the courtyard.
Maybe that was Notch’s version of convalescence.
Gaer waited until Notch was within easy earshot, but still too far away for polite conversation. He gestured at the armor, called, “Are you . . . restricted duty?”
Notch scoffed and called back. “Not exactly. My rig needs repair, though, and it’s not at the top of the list.”
If the Weep decided to go into a full surge, Gaer had no doubt Notch’s rig would be ready for battle in very short order. He supposed Notch knew that, too.
Notch stopped in front of Gaer. Looked both ways on the rampart, noting where the next-closest templars were, how likely they were to be able to hear (as far as Gaer could get from them, and very likely). Then he said, “You don’t make it easy.”
Gaer turned and leaned back against the wall. His coat—because although he was not restricted from his own battle-rig, he knew wearing it to just walk around would trigger all manner of suspicion—warded the worst of the chill from the stone. It helped, too, that he was tall enough that he could rest his hips against the rampart, so that his dorsal spikes did not force him to tilt one way or the other. He leaned back on his hands so that his ventral ridge pushed with axe-blade prominence against his tunic, where the coat front hung open.
Notch’s eyes flicked to that ridge, and Gaer said, “I set a low threshold of difficulty. If you weren’t willing to climb the stairs to talk to me at all, then you won’t be willing to listen to what I have to say.”
Notch pulled his eyes back to Gaer’s face. “I meant—to say thank you. You don’t make it easy.”
“Is that why you think I asked you come? To demand thanks?”
“No. But I figured I better get it out of the way before you say anything else. So—thanks for making sure I didn’t die. Iffy says it was all you.” Notch went and leaned on the wall, beside Gaer and facing the other direction, balanced on forearms and elbows. He squinted into the wind. “Now, what did you want to talk about?”
Some of the red had leached out of Notch’s aura. It was a roiling violet now, streaks of agitation like lightning. Gaer had rehearsed versions of this next bit that were more diplomatic, manipulative, flattering. He discarded them all.
“I want to go get them.”
Notch had been pulling at his gloves, tugging at fingertips and adjusting the fit of the armguards over the leather. Now he stopped and made two careful fists and looked down at them. “Go on.”
“I had—have—the altar coordinates. I know where they were. I don’t think they’ve gone very far since, if they’ve gone anywhere at all.” Gaer spun around on the wall, bringing himself closer to Notch. He propped himself up on his hands—elbows being spikily inconvenient for leaning. Oh, now they looked like a conspiracy. Which, to be fair, they were. Gaer lifted his chin toward the storm. “I think that is where they are. The fissure’s very active. I think it’s partly causing that storm. There are—do you care about meteorology?”
Notch actually laughed. “No.” And then, sober again. “How sure are you?”
“My life on it. Iari’s life on it.”
“No one else matters?”
“They do. Not as much. I expect it’s the same for you with Dodri and Llian.”
Notch blew out a long, slow plume of breath. “Yeah. Okay. You told the Knight-Marshal.”
“I told both of the Knight-Marshals.”
Notch side-eyed him. “I’d heard Knight-Marshal Tobin was here. That’s Aedis protocol if one Knight-Marshal’s going out in the field. I thought he was here was because Keawe was going to retrieve them.”
“She wants to take Rishi out, find the location of that altar, and turn it into a crater. Tobin won’t risk killing templars. Yet.”
“Huh. So he’s refused to take command of Windscar, then.” Notch’s eyes narrowed. He had golden eyes, Gaer noticed. Almost lambent. “What’s the yet?”
“If the permanent Weep fissure surges. Or if there is sufficient disturbance to make it clear the altar is being used to open temporary fissures and flood the province with Brood. That is my educated guess, based on, sss. Based on what I know.” Tobin had asked about Weep fissure activity, was it a surge, what did Gaer think. Then Keawe had sent more templars to the walls. “When the cultists use the altar, I . . . have told the Knight-Marshals that I can find it.”
