Ten Arrows of Iron, page 11
His face screwed up, eyes shutting tight as he clapped his hands over his ears, like he could hear them in his head. He let out a low whine as Yria shot him a glance before looking back to Two Lonely Old Men.
“One typically does not see the Fleet far from Weiless,” the Freemaker said as he walked a circle around the table. “Only their presence keeps Imperial birds from swooping down and turning the Revolutionary capital to cinders. In their most dire circumstances, they have never sent more than two airships away from the city. For this new Relic…”
His features trembled. His words came out dry and rasping.
“They sent all ten.”
I took a special pride in my ability to not be rendered speechless—they didn’t call me Sal the Cacophony because I was often at a loss for words, after all. But this…
I’d never seen one of the Revolution’s airships. Hell, I was halfway convinced they didn’t actually exist outside of the ramblings of drunkards and the shrieking of lost minds. There were stories about them, same way there are stories about every monster.
Among the dramatic, they were called the Ten Arrows, the greatest weapons in the Revolution’s quiver. So named because they flew where the Great General told them and where they struck… tales were born.
Tales of fields of fire, blazes that burned for six weeks straight. Legends of the blackened graveyards the ships left in their wake, twisted trees and bombed-out homes to serve as headstones for the carpets of corpses. Songs of roaring engines, of screaming skies, of iron wings…
I didn’t know what all ten ships would leave behind.
I didn’t know if there were words invented that would describe that.
“And at their head…”
Two Lonely Old Men made a gesture. The phantom images quivered, vanished, and were replaced by a ghostly visage.
The man who stared back at us was just an image, I knew, but to look at him, I’d have believed him a ghost. He was a wrinkled, withered husk of a human, a frown so severe that it was a crater in his face that sucked in every other part of his countenance. His eyes were sunken, his nose crooked, his cheeks gaunt. You wouldn’t think he was alive, let alone in command, and yet…
“Culven Loyal.”
“Loyal?” The name sprang to my lips unbidden. “He’s a fucking Loyal?”
“Is that… bad?” Urda asked, sheepish.
“You know the name.”
Jero’s voice was as cold as his stare as he looked toward me. Not as cold as the sensation that settled at the base of my neck at the mention of that name, though.
“Every Revolutionary gets their name from the Great General himself,” I said. “Prouds, Sterns, Relentlesses, Dutifuls…”
“Erstwhiles,” Jero muttered.
“There’s no name higher in the Revolution’s eyes than a Loyal. They have his respect, his admiration, and his trust,” I continued. “Probably why the paranoid fuck’s only ever given it to six people.”
“Rather,” Two Lonely Old Men observed, “the Loyals are entrusted with every secret the General himself knows and, thus, every secret of the Revolution and all their machines. Hence, they are never far from his side.” He stared at the phantom image of Culven Loyal’s face, contemplative. “Until now.”
The Iron Fleet.
The Ten Arrows.
And one of the Great General’s own advisers aboard it.
That was unheard of. But then, so was this new Relic.
Which meant that whatever Two Lonely Old Men was planning was also…
“That means they value this new Relic enough to leave their city defenseless,” I said, scratching at a scar. “Which means they think whatever it is can change the balance of power in the Scar in their favor.”
I chewed on those words for a moment. Then, realization hit me like the hilt of a wrought-iron blade across my jaw. I stared at the spectral image with cold dread.
“And that’s why you want to steal it.”
“‘Steal’?” A wry smile creased his haggard face. “That’s far too primitive a word for what I intend to do. I will use this Relic to ensure peace for countless generations. Madame Cacophony, with your aid, I will hack off the head of this war and water the Scar with its blood.”
“Okay, but…” I scratched the back of my head. “You know that still sounds extremely violent, right?”
“You might have to elaborate, darling,” Agne said, nodding.
“Think of it,” Two Lonely Old Men hissed, leaning over the table. “A Relic of this magnitude has never been seen before. In the hands of the Revolution, it would become another siege engine, another cannon, another weapon. But in the hands of a Freemaker… in my hands?
“With severium, alchemics, and oil, I created Lastlight. With a Relic, I could create an immortal city: lights that never dim, water that never runs dry, food that never withers. With a Relic of that power, I could bring Lastlight back from the dead and spread her across the entire Scar. No one need go hungry, no one need fear the brigand or the beast, no one need worry for anything so long as I could make that.”
“Can a Relic actually do any of that?” Jero surprised me by asking. Up until now, he had seemed to be the most informed of any of us outside the Freemaker himself. “I always thought they, you know, made things explode.”
“In the hands of those primates in the Revolution, yes.” Two Lonely Old Men waved a hand, sneering. “Their imaginations are throttled in the crib and their minds are stunted by a diet of propaganda. There’s not a book in the entire archives of Weiless that isn’t a military treatise or slogan scrawled on paper. Their vision blended with this Relic could only create a bigger explosion.”
“They have several explosions already, darling,” Agne pointed out. “What’s to stop them from simply taking it back once you have it?”
Two Lonely Old Men smiled. “With such power in the hands of a Freemaker, who would dare make a move?”
He had a point, I had to admit. Regardless of the prevailing attitudes on Freemakers in the Revolution and Imperium—which ranged from branding them as lunatic menaces to outright hunting them down—there wasn’t a soldier, noble, or politician who didn’t recognize their intellect and aptitude.
A Freemaker left to their own devices was dangerous. A Freemaker in possession of a Relic was a tragedy waiting to happen. The most brilliant Freemaker in the Scar in possession of a Relic of unfathomable power…
“Shit.” My eyebrows went up. “That might just be enough to make even the Imperium think twice about making a move. Any move.”
“Just so.” The Freemaker’s grin grew broader, that fire in his eyes burned brighter. “Think of it. Just the threat of the Relic in my hands would be enough to curb the aggressions of both powers. They already were wary of my wrath before. With this, I could coerce the Imperium, the Revolution, and every warmongering bloodthirster in their ranks into pacifism.
“The prosperity I promise would walk hand in hand with peace. No more children burying their parents. No more cities turned to graveyards. No more soldiers, no more atrocities, no more orphans, no more…” He paused, looked down at his hands. “No more ruins.”
“Now granted, all that latter business sounds quite lovely,” Agne said, scratching her chin. “It’s all the… insane things beforehand that I’m having trouble coming to grips with. Wherever this Relic is, it must be heavily guarded. Impossibly so.”
“‘Impossibly’ is an understatement,” Jero said.
“Given that ‘impossible’ is an absolute, I don’t see how that can be an under—”
“The Relic is currently under guard,” he continued over her, “in a stronghold brimming with soldiers, cannons, and every kind of mechanical horror the Revolution’s warped little minds can dream up. And that’s before the Ten Arrows show up. Once you add airships to the mix, retrieving it from within will be impossible.”
“So, what’s the plan, then?” Agne asked.
Two Lonely Old Men smiled in that way someone smiles when you know they’re about to say something insane.
“We’re going to steal it from the airships.”
See?
“I beg your pardon?” Agne said, clearing her throat. “I believe I had something incredibly stupid in my ear.”
“The Great General wants the Relic brought to Weiless for study. I mean, he wants it bad enough to send all ten airships to it. Lifting it out of its stronghold is impossible. Lifting it out of Weiless is unthinkable. But the journey from one to the other provides us a weeklong window. If we can get in and get out—”
“Get out,” Agne repeated. “With a gigantic Relic. How do you propose to do that?”
I glanced across the table toward the twins. “I suppose that’s why you brought a Doormage.”
“Birdshit.”
Yria shot out of her chair, slammed her hands onto the table.
“I fucking knew this was going to be insane, but fuck, I feel my brain leaking out my ears just listening to you.” She gestured wildly at the spectral image. “The Iron Fleet? Do you fucking hear yourself? You want us to fucking try to swipe a Relic the size of your dad’s gaping asshole after I’m done with him from a fleet of airships—those are ships that fly in the fucking air, in case you’re stupider than you sound—brimming with cannons, soldiers, and… and… fuck, I don’t even know what else they’ve got in there.”
She shook her head and waved a hand through the spectral image, casting it into a blurry mess as she turned and started heading for the door.
“I knew this would be crazy, but I thought it’d at least be the profitable kind of crazy. Fuck your plan, fuck your Relic, and fuck you, old man.” She shot up a rude gesture—with both hands, impressively enough—as she stormed toward the door. “Come on, Urda. We’re leaving.”
She went without protest, without objection, without insult. As she hesitated at the door, she realized she went without her brother.
She turned. Her twin sat at the table. His eyes had turned up for the first time since I had arrived and were locked on the image of the fleet.
“Urda?” she asked.
He turned to her. And for the first time, I saw his face. He looked too young. Too young to be in a place like this, with people like this—too guileless, too naïve, with eyes too big and mouth too trembling as he looked back at his sister and whispered in a shaking voice.
“No more orphans, Yria,” he said.
His sister’s face didn’t so much screw up as implode. Her mouth hung open for a second before she gritted her teeth, narrowed her eyes, clenched her hands into trembling fists, and tensed up like she was ready to leap across the table and beat those too-big eyes right out of her brother’s skull. I saw her lips twitch with the beginnings of a hundred different curses—some of which actually made me blush, or had the last time I’d heard them—before she shut her eyes tight and let out a snort.
All the anger and venom seemed to ebb out of her, leaking out in a long, tired sigh. With her head hanging low and her shoulders slumping, she dejectedly stomped back to her seat.
“Fucking doe-eyed crybaby,” she muttered, “always fucking going and shedding tears like a fucking piece of…”
Her voice trailed off into an unintelligible and creative string of curses, but she made no other move to leave. Soon enough, her voice fell as still as the rest of her as she fixed a pointed glare onto the Freemaker.
“If there are no other objections?”
Two Lonely Old Men’s question hung in the silent air, unchallenged. Unsettlingly so.
Not that I was relishing the idea of another slew of curses—creative though Yria’s had been—but I felt it would have been perfectly reasonable to meet a plot to steal a weapon of unknown and possibly limitless power from one of the most powerful armies in the Scar with at least slightly more skepticism.
Yet, as my eyes drifted around the table, my curiosity followed. I looked from Yria and Urda—resentful and withdrawn, respectively—to Agne, attentive and rapt, to Tuteng, who had sat so still and silent I had barely remembered he was there. Each of them was silent in the face of this insanity. I couldn’t help but wonder what Two Lonely Old Men had offered them to make them want to stay.
I suppose I could have asked, like a normal person.
Of course, then there was the chance that they’d ask me, and I’d have to reveal my reason for staying and explain why I wanted a bunch of people dead so badly that I’d indulge this madness and it’d be a whole… thing…
I was content to let everyone’s motives be their own, for the moment. Granted, to the outside viewer, that might sound a touch insane—after all, you might point out, honesty is more emotionally healthy and, from a practical standpoint, knowing where everyone’s priorities lay would mean fewer surprises. To which, I would reply, you had some good points.
But consider this.
Shut up.
Only in the military or at an orgy do you want honesty, and even then it’s incredibly awkward. In a situation like this, the less everyone knows about each other, the less likely anyone is to let their guard down. No doubt everyone here was thinking the same thing I was. And if they weren’t, no doubt they’d be dead before long.
Either way, it wasn’t going to be an issue.
“Very well, then.” Two Lonely Old Men gestured back to the table. “Master Jero. The map, if you would.”
Jero grunted, rising from his chair and producing a rolled-up parchment.
“Oh.” A note of disappointment escaped my mouth.
“What?” he asked, glancing at me.
“Nothing. It’s just… it’s a regular map,” I observed.
“What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. You had all these spooky, glowing things…” I gestured to the illuminated sigils upon the table. “I was kind of expecting the map to follow suit.”
“She has a point,” Agne said. “You can’t really expect us to be impressed with a map that doesn’t glow.”
“Oh, I could make it glow,” Urda offered, fumbling with a pen and inkwell. “Just give me a little bit.”
“He can,” Yria grunted. “Give him ten minutes and he’ll make that map glow like a fat man in a—”
“Master Jero,” Two Lonely Old Men pointedly interjected. “If you would be so kind.”
Jero struggled for a moment to figure out which of us to spare the bulk of his scowl for before giving up and unfurling the map on the table. The Valley sprawled out in parchment before us as everyone gathered around to have a look.
Funny, I thought, but I never realized just how many villages were in it.
“The Fleet’s route is currently thus.” Jero drew a finger from an imposing-looking stronghold in the south up toward the north and west toward Weiless. “Plenty of open air, good for surprise maneuvers.”
“And bad for us,” I noted. “I’m assuming, anyway.”
“And you’d be correct. The more room they have, the more chances they have to escape. We need them to take a more… claustrophobic route.” He stabbed his finger toward a series of mountains leading east. “The mountains here provide enough room for each airship individually, but prevent any possibility of… complications.”
“Such as not being susceptible to ambush by a bunch of ill-intentioned louts?” I asked.
Jero flashed me a grin. “Ill-intentioned louts and their extremely handsome friend.”
“What are these here?” Agne pointed at a cluster of inked houses at the foot of the mountains. “It looks like the route you chose goes right over them.”
“Villages. Townships. A freehold here and there. The mountains are littered with mines and people flock there for work and metal.”
“The area has a name.”
My heart skipped a beat. The voice—so soft that it was barely audible—felt like it was coming right out of my skull.
Not here, I thought. Fuck me, not here, of all places. I can’t be hearing things that aren’t there now.
But my breathing slowed when I saw that everyone else wore the same bewildered look I did, as though we’d heard a ghost. And in another second, we heard it speak again.
“They call it the Blessing. Humans do, anyway.” Beneath his hood, Tuteng’s voice came impossibly quiet. His eyes glittered softly, gemstones reflecting a dying light. “We called it something different. It was beautiful… once.”
His voice ebbed away as quietly as it had come. The glitter in his eyes vanished back into the shadows of his hood, leaving him faceless and slight. Perhaps he wasn’t a ghost.
But the freaky little fucker might as well have been.
“At any rate,” Jero continued with a dismissive wave of his hand. “If all goes well, we’ll have our prize and be gone long before we go over them.”
“And if all doesn’t go well?”
“Then we’ll be so high in the clouds, they won’t even notice us.” He rolled up the map. “The sort of people in that chunk of land can barely understand the word heist, let alone interfere with it. They’ll be of no concern.”
Yria folded her arms, let out a snort. “So you need these flying fucks—”
“Fleet,” Urda corrected her.
“Flying fucking fleet, whatever,” she grunted, “you need them to take that route. How the fuck you planning on doing that?”
All eyes—or I assume all, Tuteng’s were kind of hard to see—turned toward Jero. He held them for a moment before looking expectantly to Two Lonely Old Men. The Freemaker let out a long, tired sigh as he leaned forward.
The glow of the sigils painted his face in haggard, weary shadows. The fire in his eyes sputtered out. What was left was a walking corpse, standing upright only by virtue of the table he leaned on, bereft of all but the barest spark of light behind his eyes.
“Understand this,” he said. “I know what I ask of you. I know the impossibility of success. I know the many, many things that could go wrong. And I…” He closed his eyes, drew in a breath. “I know that if we fail, the Relic will turn this war from a spark to a wildfire. If there exists any chance of stopping it, of improving lives…”
