The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (38 page)

“Get some rest, okay?” he said, quietly.

Elia nodded once, having trouble raising her head back up again.  “Yes, senior tech,” she muttered as her eyes fluttered closed.

Lundin hugged his knees to his chest, watching his people sleep.  He looked up at the thin column of starlight filtering down through the grating overhead.

“If there’s a way out of this, you two,” he said, very quietly, “I promise I will lead you there.”

His eyes were heavier than he expected, and he tried shutting them.  It was a long time before he sank into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

The Petronaut’s boots whined as she navigated the steep hill.  She held out her arms for balance as she came down the slope sideways, cursing the terrain.  It’s a good thing she’d come scouting herself, rather than trying to bring the wagon around too.  Even with its treads, there was no way the boxy vehicle could have made it up and down a grade this sharp. 
Watch me slip and break a leg during my rescue mission,
she thought. 
Then Sir Ulstead will have to come carry us both.  Serve him right for giving me grief just because my suit’s not made for hauling.  I’d love to see how we squared off in a fair fight.  My armor still packs plenty of punch—

She turned slowly at the sound of rustling leaves, expecting a little woodland animal.  Instead, she saw a pair of violet eyes and a fist raised up to her chest, and heard the unmistakable metallic sound of claws being released.  Three blades punched forward with an explosive release of tension.

The ‘naut lay back against a log, not remembering having fallen down, and touched a fingertip to the holes in the center of her breastplate.  The golden eye sockets of her mask kept gleaming after the eyes behind them went dark.

Dame Miri looked down at the dead woman, breathing heavily.  Spheres, had it hurt to clench her fist like that.  She was surprised she’d had enough grip strength to trigger the claws in the glove-and-bracer apparatus she’d lifted off the other Petronaut.

Her heart was pounding.  This little ambush had been a one-shot opportunity; any sort of protracted fight against a ‘naut in her unarmed, semi-crippled state would have been hopeless.  She exhaled all the air in her lungs and made herself calm down.  She looked down at the three claws jutting out from her wrist, now stained with red.  “Okay… how do I get you back in?” she murmured, flexing her hand in all sorts of painful ways.

Her lower back was throbbing with pain, and it started making itself noisy again now that her ambush was done.  She rubbed the muscles as best she could with that hand that wasn’t bedecked with razor-sharp claws. 

The impromptu flight from Campos’ walls couldn’t have been long, or gone far.  They’d been surprisingly lucky to avoid tree trunks or thick branches as they launched headfirst through the air.  The ‘naut had tried to drop her, but Dame Miri had held on to the armored woman as doggedly as she’d held on to the thruster chain that kept the pack spewing fire.  The feeling of speed was truly astonishing—especially without a helmet.  Then, finally, inevitably, the naut had wrested her hands away from the thruster and they’d simply wrestled for position in mid-air as they tumbled through an endless gauntlet of whip-thin branches on their way to the forest floor.

Clearly, Miri had won the war for position, because when she came to (who knew how much later; all she knew was that the sun was gone) she’d been on top, bruised and with a nasty strain in the small of her back.  The ‘naut, who’d been underneath her, had an arm and much of her shoulder physically embedded in the dirt, and her head and neck at a concerning angle.  Dame Miri had tumbled a good three meters away when they’d hit the ground, as near as she could figure from the scuffs in the dirt.  She’d leapt to her feet when she saw the ‘naut nearby, taking a groggy fighting stance against those gleaming golden eyes.  But when many seconds passed without the half-buried Petronaut so much as wiggling a toe, Dame Miri realized that the fight she’d been afraid of was already over.

The woman had been more thickly muscled than her, with shorter arms and shorter legs, so virtually none of her armor would fit.  Also, just like the other masked ‘naut Miri had fought back in Delia, her suit didn’t seem to have a long-range weapon built in anywhere. 
Damned inconvenient,
she had thought after looking over the body.  With two other ‘nauts who saw her fly off, she knew it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for her; or, at the very least, the dead ‘naut.  And she had to be armed when that happened.  So, after a quick prayer of apology to the Spheres for mistreating a corpse, Dame Miri had carefully manipulated the woman’s hand until hitting on the finger position that sent the claws launching out.  Then she’d removed the other glove and bracer and placed it on her own, too-thin right hand. 

Thank goodness the enemy’s armor wasn’t as quiet as a Delian Recon suit.  As she made her own way north, Dame Miri had been able to hear the second ‘naut coming nearly a minute before she came sidling down the hillside, and take her hiding place against a thick oak until the perfect moment.

Fabulous success
, she thought to herself, the ache in her sides really starting to bother her. 
I’m sure Colonel Yough will be delighted to take a break from counting her dead and repairing the fortress to hear your heroic tale of falling down on one bad guy, and stabbing another before she could fight back
.  “Actually, she might,” she said aloud, reconsidering.  The thought that her good news might be enough to turn Yough’s day around was profoundly depressing.  With any luck, the Army’s charge out the main gates had swept up dozens of captives and full confessions all around. 
I sure hope so, because I’m burned if I can imagine what makes these people tick.

Well, obviously, they thought that anyone associated with mechanized wizardry was worth taking unthinkable risks for.  She’d seen Willl shove Lundin onto his back, trying to lower a black hood over his face.  It was no accident that the attack at the southeastern gate had come just as they ran past.  Snatching up the passel of Civics must have been the objective from the first mortar shell at sundown.  If Willl was on their side, who knew how long their work and movements had been monitored?

Whatever the reason, whatever the intent behind it, bad, bad things were going to happen to Lundin, Elia, and Martext if the Army couldn’t get to them, and quick.  Dame Miri tore the clawed glove off and let it clatter to the earth.  She exhaled, frustrated.  If she knew how to track, she’d get on their trail right now.  Seconds might make the difference in the techs being alive or dead when Delia finally caught up with them, and the body sprawled on the log was proof that a little surprise could go a long way, even against enemy ‘nauts.  But without any way of knowing which direction Lundin and the others had been taken, or how they were traveling, there was no sense in her jaunting off after them by herself.  The only logical choice was to make her way back to Fort Campos and join a methodical search party.

Burn me.  I’m really going to do this.  I’m going to stumble my way back to Campos and walk in a straight line with a bunch of musketeers, combing the woods in a grid
. 
That’s what I’m going to do, while my squad is stuck in a cesspool of murderers. 
Her eyes were watering, and she brushed the tears away angrily.  Her back was getting to her.

Her feet felt a little wobbly, and the hills were serious business in this part of the woods.  It was dark at the base of the slope, with just a dusting of moonlight breaking through the canopy above.  Dame Miri was almost grateful for the unnerving golden light beaming from the dead woman’s eyes as she took a look at the ‘naut’s boots. 
Almost my size.
  Ranine coils would help her keep her footing, and get back to Campos sooner.  She knelt down, gritting her teeth as her muscles went into open rebellion against her, and started unbuckling the woman’s boots. 

The fit was just on the bad side of snug, but that kind of discomfort barely registered over the myriad aches and scrapes on the rest of her body.  Dame Miri found an honest-to-goodness knife in a sheath against the ‘naut’s thigh, and examined it in the golden eyelight.  The blade was wide and had a sharp bend near the tip, just a few degrees short of looking like a number seven with a hilt.  It was made of some sort of smoky black steel that was almost invisible in the dark air, unless the light was hitting it just so.  Dame Miri took the sheath and affixed it to her own belt, taking a brief moment to mourn the irreparable damage a high-speed crash had done to her tailored trousers.

Then she looked down at that mask, a smoothly carved wooden oval with gold coins for eyes.  Dame Miri hesitated.  Having a light source in these woods would be a help.  But pilfering boots and weapons from these ‘nauts was one thing (and didn’t leave her with a good feeling as it was).  Putting on one of their burning masks was another.  The Parade Squad had done a masked rendition of
A Hundred Days of Water
after a feast at Waramore Hall.  When she’d put on the face of the Marsh Crane, she’d become a different being.  More than playing a character, more than taking a new name, putting on a mask meant losing a piece of yourself.  You could only hope that, when you took it off, you would come back as the same person.

Don’t be such a burning artist
, her brain scolded. 
You can consider the fluid nature of identity over goblets of sparkling wine later.  It’s dark.  Do you want light or not?

“I needed that,” she murmured as she knelt down by the ‘naut’s side.  Slowly, she felt around the rim of the mask.  The shadows flickered and snuck around her as her arms passed in the path of the golden light.  There were two hair-thin wires that threaded through loops in the mask, at the same height as the woman’s ears.  The wires encircled the cowl the ‘naut was wearing.  Dame Miri slipped the wires off the woman’s head.  There was some tension to them, and they shortened a bit as she removed the mask.

The face inside was heart-shaped, lined with more age than Miri had expected.  This woman had to be a decade older than her.  Her dark brown eyes were still open, dumbly curious.  Dame Miri took in a long breath and pressed her fingers against the woman’s eyelids, sealing them shut. 

She stood, holding the mask at arm’s length.  The eyes were glowing brightly on the inside of the mask too; she had no idea what created that illumination.  The Civics had created a phosphorescent glaze for ceramics, she remembered vaguely, but nothing nearly this bright, or steady.  Dame Miri raised the mask up, turning and casting its light up the hill. 
What if I just hold it like a torch instead of putting it on? 
she thought, automatically walking forward in the same direction as the light.

Miri stopped. 
What am I doing?  Fort Campos is that way. 
She looked to her left.  She was absolutely positive that’s the direction from which she and her unwilling co-pilot had come streaking through the air.  After scaling the steepest of the slopes, she’d been planning to break west when she heard the sound of the enemy ‘naut approaching.  But the beams of light from the mask were pointing due north, and it was as if a little hand was pressing against the small of her back, pushing her to follow the golden eyes.

Spheres save me
, she thought. 
I need to put this down right now
.  But the insistent pressure started taking a more concrete shape, and she felt two tugs now; one leading back the way she’d come, and a much stronger one pulling her forward up the hill.  Unbidden, the images of two strange faces floated into her mind: a man’s face, small and square on top of hulking shoulders, and a woman’s, with rounded features and a shaved head.  The woman was behind her.  The man was ahead.

Dame Miri dropped the mask face-down on the slanted earth.  Harsh golden light still shone up against her body, backwards through the eye sockets.  The directional yearning started to subside, and as quickly as they’d appeared, the two faces faded so thoroughly that she couldn’t remember any details about them.

She reached down and picked up the mask again.  “Burn me,” she said aloud as the images of the faces drifted back into place. 
It’s the other two ‘nauts.  The mask is telling me where they are.
She’d wondered how the second ‘naut had been able make her way towards their crash site so effortlessly. 
Her mask led her right to her partner.  Sweet Spheres, how is that possible?
  She had a feeling they were going to have a long conversation with Ronk, once her squad got out of this.

Her mind started whirling. 
If this woman was able to find me by following her mask, then that means that I can find the big guy the same way.  And if I find him, I’ll find…

The ‘naut’s square face seemed like it was hovering in the distance, just a little bit out of her line of sight.  Dame Miri looked to the west again, where Fort Campos was waiting.

“All right,” she said, setting the mask down again.  She picked up a smooth, speckled stone, about the length of her thumb, and brushed the dirt off of it.  She drew the curved black knife and pressed the edge against the rock, leaving a thin white line.

“Heads, I go back to Campos, report my status, join the search party,” she said, sheathing the knife.  “Tails, I chase down my squad before it’s too late to save them.”

She flicked the stone into the air.  It landed with a soft thud, and she tilted the mask to shine on it. 

“Well, that settles it,” she said, raising the mask high.  Dame Miri headed northeast after the golden light, leaving the little stone behind.  The fact that she hadn’t picked which side was heads and which was tails until after the flip would be her little secret, if anyone ever asked.

Chapter Eleven

The War In The Woods

Only two families lived in the hollow.  They had cleared enough of the scrubby land to raise squash and berries and give the goats some space to wander.  Fathers and daughters, mothers and sons pitched in to keep the babies fed and keep the traps manned, fulfilling the little contract they had with a furriers’ cooperative based in far-off Kess.  Other than the regular meetings with the city folk to trade their pelts for wine, fabric, and those smoked ducks and geese that only a Kessian kitchen could do right, the world outside the hollow mostly left them alone.