Monsters & Empire, page 34
He signaled to Taig and Madison, gestured toward the Revived in the net, and then pulled himself out of the mud. Then he raced to put himself on the ice bridge between the Vampires that needed to feed and the advancing Revived. Eclason joined him. As they stood shoulder to shoulder, the out-of-time fell away; sound and gravity returned. Bullets fired and slipped from their armor. The Revived before them did not advance, but Bayo tasted … snow … and felt the chill encroaching on his toes and fingertips. An Ice Maker Revived was trying to freeze him. Ice and fire were not Bayo’s forte, but he wasn’t helpless against such attacks. He concentrated on using the Ember in his blood to keep himself warm and snarled behind his cowl. Scanning the men in front of them, he tried to pinpoint the Ice Maker. Looking over his shoulder—perhaps the Ice Maker was behind them—he scanned the melee. Taig and Madison had pulled back the cowl of one of the Revived. Taig’s head was bent over the Revived’s neck. Madison was sitting on the creature’s chest, hacking at another Revived struggling to pull itself out of the net. Beyond them, other members of the Alliance were trying to subdue other Revived. Bayo couldn’t pick out the Ice Maker.
Eclason’s fingers danced in front of Bayo’s eyes, the reflective paint spelling out a message: “Ice Maker, second from right.”
Bayo’s attention flicked to the Ice Maker. He or she was barely visible in their armor and partially concealed behind the shoulders of two other Revived, only visible because of their shadows. The next moment they surged forward, the Ice Maker staying in place. Bayo was better at repelling Ice Making and Firemaking assaults than Eclason … Eclason’s voice rang in his mind. “You take the Ice Maker. I’ll take the others. Go!”
Together they raced into the charge. Bayo leaped at the last moment, and Eclason’s sword flashed beneath him, slashing at the necks of the Revived and the weak spots just beneath their chins. Bayo thought he heard Eclason’s voice in his mind, but the words were indistinct, as though he were listening to Eclason’s voice through water. Whatever warning Eclason was trying to give was too late. Bayo was already plowing into the Ice Maker, feet striking the Revived’s chest. Cold poured up his soles, as though he’d taken a step into ice water, but the Ember coursing through his veins kept them from becoming frostbitten, or worse.
The Revived stumbled backward. Bayo managed to land on his feet. Bayo hacked at him with his sword. Its point was deadly sharp, but the Revived armor was as immune to puncture as Bayo’s. The sword’s power lay in the force of its impact. It kept the Ice Maker distracted and kept him from growing the bridge or freezing the other Legionnaires on the spot. He didn’t look back. He could taste the bright sharp flavor of Eclason’s power, like sunlight on sand, and trusted his friend to protect him.
Hacking at the Revived again, and again, the flavor of ice bit Bayo’s tongue and his hands stung with the impact of the blade. His face felt oddly windblown behind the cowl. The Ice Maker toppled, almost caught his balance, but Bayo brought the blade down across his shoulders, knocking him flat. Kneeling on his back, he slid the blade of his sword around the man’s neck and sawed until he found the weak seam. He kept sawing, even as the Revived tried to throw him loose. Blood spilled out on the ice bridge, turning everything it touched to mud. Bayo’s hands, feet, and knees burned. At last, the Revived stopped struggling.
Someone somewhere was screaming. He could barely hear them over gunfire and the deep whine of mortars.
Bayo ripped the cowl from the man’s face, exposing his neck. He grabbed the Revived’s hair and sliced his knife along the back of his neck, through muscle ligaments and cartilage. To decapitate a body quickly, you needed either great force or skill. All of the Order had the skill, and Bayo was charged with Ember and rage. He no longer felt the cold in his fingers or toes.
“Bayo!” someone shouted. That was the last thing he heard before the peaceful silence of the out-of-time settled around him. He finished his job. Rose. Turned around. Walls of mud ascended twelve feet high on either side of the ice bridge and stretched thirty feet in either direction. No. Not walls. Waves of mud, lifted from the river bottom sludge, about to crash down on them.
Eclason caught his shoulder, and his voice ripped through Bayo’s mind. “We have to retreat.”
Bayo scowled at the words and the plan.
“The Vampires can’t keep this many of us out-of-time,” Eclason said, or thought. The words were in Bayo’s mind, not his ears. “Even with the blood of the Revived.”
Bayo almost swore, and then noted that there were more UMS troops on the bridge. He blinked. The waves, if they fell, would crush the UMS troops as surely as it would crush the Legion.
His heart sank. But it wouldn’t matter. They were Revived and would rise again as soon as the sludge was cleared away.
Without acknowledging Eclason, Bayo spun back toward the bank. He’d managed to defeat one lousy Ice Maker. Even if another member of the Legion managed to destroy a second, there were still more, and the ice bridge crept closer. He reached the ice bridge’s edge and began crossing the sludge of the river bottom, jogging over the surface in the out-of-time. If the Vampires tired, he’d sink into it. As the other Legionnaires jogged beside him, he noted some had already been caught in the sludge during the slips to real-time. Mud stained their armor, making their legs visible. One man had it up to his chest. The Alliance would shell the bridge, but the sludgy mix of water and silt would seep up into the gaps and be frozen … the ice bridge could be forever revived as well.
They reached the bank, and real-time hit him like a physical blow. Behind them came a crash. Bayo looked over his shoulder to see the sludge waves crashing over the Revived, most of them still trapped in the net, others tripping in the net as they tried to pursue the Legion. He threw himself over a sandbag wall.
“Is that an Ice Maker?” a little RoNet mouse squeaked. Unease from the mouse and other members of the fort flowed across the Ember.
Which was when Bayo realized he was still carrying the Ice Maker’s head by the hair. He didn’t recognize the man he’d “blessed” with life. He wanted to chuck the thing back out into the fray, but his hands felt locked to the man’s hair. “Yes,” he croaked.
Eclason, beside Bayo, pulled back his cowl. “Do you have frostbite?” he asked, and Bayo could feel that he was being deliberately calm.
“No, I…” Bayo blinked. His hands, toes, and portions of the front of his body were numb. He did have frostbite.
“Do you need a medic?” a gunner asked, maybe too hopefully. Bayo got the feeling he was trying to get Bayo or the head—or both of them—out of the fortification.
“I can fix it myself,” Bayo said, slumping against the wall. Someone took the head. He didn’t see who.
Fluttering his wings atop the mortar sites, the owl said, “That was an amazing amount of mud.”
Bayo’s shoulders slumped. “It was nothing like Richter or Quake could do.” They could level mountains, raise them too. And Grendel was facing them … alone.
Grendel leaned against the partially downed tree. Uprooted by the earthquake, it leaned at a steep angle, providing cover. She peered through binoculars at the barren ridge of mud that diverted the Ohio into the Saline. At the opposite side of the dam, the riverbed was more mud and rock interspersed with rivulets and shrinking pools. Easier to freeze than a mile-long river. They weren’t doing that here, though, which meant all of the Ice Makers were probably engaged further South. She swallowed. Where Bayo was.
She squinted and raised her binoculars but couldn’t see much. The rain was thick as a curtain. Occasionally, lightning flashed, outlining the shapes of six UMS barges. Rain pattered around her, drowning out most conversation, but not the occasional blast of a limpet mine. The SMASH otter dens where they had been stored had been flooded, but the mines were made to work in water. After the initial confusion, the otters were mining the invading vessels. Between the lack of visibility, the otters, and the trees that stood like a fence along the Saline shoreline, the UMS troop carriers had not been able to land. It was only a matter of time, though. The otters’ supply of mines was limited, and Jack couldn’t make it rain forever.
As though in echo of that thought, the rain lessened … and with the lessening came the sound of conversation beside her.
“Who are you calling a weasel?” a badger demanded from amongst the tree roots.
At the Saline’s edge, a few steps from Grendel’s left, an otter said, “I’m just saying we’re all weasels.”
A dozen badgers erupted into growls.
A tiny, weaselly voice squeaked from the undergrowth, “What’s wrong with weasels?”
“Shh,” said Grendel.
The badger among the tree roots raced up the trunk and over Grendel’s back. She silently thanked her armor for protecting her skin.
Growling at the otter, the badger said, “Why, I oughta—”
“Hey, boss,” shouted another badger, “Shouldn’t you say, ‘Why, I otter’?”
The badgers broke into barking laughter. The otter and the weasel did, too.
“Shh…” said Grendel. They ignored her.
A loud smack brought the laughter to a sudden stop. A gravelly voice declared, “That’s enough of that now.”
The otter snickered. “On the other hand, beavers are rodents.”
Two beavers, serious creatures as beavers tended to be, ignored him. “We checked it out.”
The other squeaked and nodded.
The first continued, “We know where the limpet mines should be placed.”
The otters perked.
The beaver said, “We also gots a good idea where the badgers need to dig from the other side—”
The badgers snorted and grumbled.
But the beaver said, “—but they’re the experts on digging.”
The grumbling stopped, badger heads bobbed, and Grendel swore chests puffed.
The badger that had trod over Grendel stood on his hind paws. “If you can mark the dam where the mines need to be laid, we can do the rest.”
The beaver’s nose twitched. “The earth is loose. It will be dangerous for you.”
“Badgers don’t care about danger! Those”—the badger growled some words that evidently didn’t translate but sounded like the equivalent of a badger curse—“destroyed our dens. That dam is going down!”
“You can do that?” Grendel whispered.
The badger nodded. “Oh, yeahs, that dam is fresh. It ain’t packed down or firm or nothin’. Unstable. That’s why they ain’t movin’ troops across it and sticking to the barges. Soon as we punch a few holes in it, the whole thing is going to wash away.”
“It will wash downstream,” Grendel whispered. “Our troops may be on the riverbed—”
The badger growled.
The squirrel Toskr had hidden himself in an old woodpecker nest. He poked his nose out. “The Ohio River only moves at five miles per hour during flood times. Word travels along the RoNet at the speed of sound.”
An otter added, “We could use that flood to our advantage if the UMS troops are crossing.”
“Now yer talkin’!” the lead badger said. “Let’s get this party started!”
The beaver said, “First I’ll need to mark the ridge for you.”
The other beaver squeaked mournfully, and the first said, “Well, I know that means I’ll be more visible out of the water, but that is a risk I have to take.”
Grendel’s brow furrowed. “You don’t have to be visible if I take you in the out-of-time.”
The other beaver squeaked fearfully.
Toskr chittered back, “Aw, he ain’t nothin’ but a light snack to old Fangs here. He has nothing to worry about.”
The beaver stared at Toskr. She appeared absolutely petrified.
Grendel sighed. “I’m not hungry.” But she would be. A beaver didn’t have as much psychic weight as a human, but she’d be carrying him for a mile.
And then Toskr said aloud the worst part. “Of course, if those Magick Earthquake Makers strike again, it’ll all be for nuthin’.”
“Leave that to me,” she said. She’d tangled with them both before.
All the animals got quiet.
“You shouldn’t do it alone,” a badger said.
“Anyone got any ideas?” Grendel asked.
There was more silence.
CHAPTER 35
In the bleak silence of the out-of-time, Bayo brought his knife down across the Ice Maker’s throat. The seam split. Time wobbled, and real-time asserted itself. Thankfully, Bayo was on the ice bridge and didn’t sink. Mortars shrieked. Gun fire popped. In the distance, tanks rolled toward the bridge. Smoke and dust curled into the air on both sides of the river, and where shells fell, earth, forest, and pools of water exploded. Closer, Revived advanced, drawing their swords.
Madison fell upon an Ice Maker’s neck, movements sloppy and exhausted. The Revived didn’t offer resistance other than to tremble. His back was broken. He was only the second Ice Maker of the evening. There were dozens more.
Lip curling in rage and despair, Bayo sprang up to face more approaching Revived. From one of the Revived Earth Maker’s fortifications along the bridge came the explosion of a missile.
The silence of the out-of-time returned. Bayo caught the missile, almost tossed it over the advancing Revived like a football before remembering in the out-of-time, they were capable of anything he did. He gently set it to the side to deal with later. He took out his sword and met the advance, keeping them away from Madison and the other Legionnaires, putting an end—or at least a pause—to other Revived caught in Alliance nets.
A sword met his. He braced himself. In the out-of-time’s lesser gravity, both Bayo and his attacker were propelled backward by the force of the blow. But Bayo didn’t slide back as far. He had trained as a Vampire hunter and had compensated. He lunged forward, felt a shift in the Ember beside him, and Madison was up, his own sword upraised. Madison tipped it right and left, as though flexing his hand. Bayo read the signal. Braced himself again, and the out-of-time shifted to real-time and back again, catching the Revived off-balance. Bayo leaped, and at the crest of his leap, real-time returned. The Revived wobbled. Bayo landed. The silence of the out-of-time swept over him, and he and Madison knocked the Revived down with the flats of their swords. Some Revived were so off balance they were swept to the outer radius of their armor’s ability to keep them within the sphere of the out-of-time. They hung helpless in midair. Bayo used his sword to knock them off the bridge and into the surrounding mud. The Legionnaires had advanced farther toward the UMS side along the bridge. But the bridge had advanced, too. It was now only two dozen yards from the shore.
The Legionnaires dispatching the netted Revived shimmered and appeared to freeze in place. Bayo swore into the silence. Not enough Vampires, too many Revived to pull out-of-time. At that thought, he glanced over at Madison. The Vampire was leaning on his sword. He’d just drunk from the Ice Maker—but then helped Bayo trap a few dozen others in mud. They’d recover … and the bridge would continue to expand, and the tanks would roll.
Cherie, Coyote, and Grendel had all believed that he would end this, that he was the key to destroying the Revived. But he was too slow. The bridge would be complete within minutes. And the tanks were coming.
As though in a dream, Bayo saw Madison signal to retreat.
Bayo had to defeat the Revived. As long as they “lived,” the bridge would grow and expand, and the tanks would roll.
Madison signaled again.
“No,” Bayo whispered into the silence. He couldn’t let his monsters be stronger than him. He wouldn’t let them.
Bayo turned in a circle, surveying the Revived at the edge of the out-of-time. He put his sword down, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He’d made them. He’d forced Ember to knit their veins and arteries, rebuild their muscles and ligaments, and to recreate their nervous systems.
A hand landed on his arm. Real-time returned, the screams of weapons, and the reverberations of explosions. Madison shouted, “Bayo, we have to—”
“This ends now!” Bayo roared.
Slitting the throat of a Revived, Eclason wasn’t sure if he heard Bayo’s roar with his ears or in his mind.
In their armor, the Revived were bloody hard to kill, in the most literal sense of the expression. In other ways, they were easier to kill than anyone or anything Eclason had ever encountered. They didn’t care. They didn’t fear. They didn’t beg. They thought about their mission and the motions they went through. There was nothing else.
Bayo’s roar made him look up from the grisly business.
He blinked through the smoke and dust and saw Bayo farther south on the ice bridge, his armor so coated with grime that its camouflage properties no longer functioned. Madison stood next to him, a hand on Bayo’s arm. Eclason heard Bayo’s Magick surging. Around him, the Vampires and the other Legionnaires were preparing to retreat again. The next wave of Revived was too far away. They needed to wait until they came closer to the Alliance shore. He focused on Bayo, and his eyes widened beneath his cowl.
Taig rose from the Revived he’d just drained. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Eclason didn’t hear it with his ears. A mortar was screaming overhead. The next instant, it was silent as Taig drew them out-of-time.
Instead of using hand signs, Eclason spoke directly into his mind. “Bayo wants to end all the Revived.”
Taig spoke into the out-of-time’s silence. “Don’t we all?”
“Not like us …” Eclason’s brows drew together. Tanks were crawling across the bridge now. The situation at Saline Landing had to be even worse. And he knew what others didn’t—the Alliance was running low on ammo. Soon, they would be trapped between the forces in the North and the ones here. They’d be crushed, and the main force of the Alliance military would be annihilated.
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