The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (46 page)

“Masks are their prime export.”

“Apart from this down-with-Delia trash,” Dame Gaulda grumbled.

Sir Mathias glanced over his shoulder.  The platoons were advancing in slow, careful rows, more than seventy muskets trained on every place where a mask might pop up.  Their captured vehicle was far behind at the top of the hill, its dented golden skin just visible between the trees. 
All these people,
he thought. 
All these weapons behind me.  And I feel more nervous than ever.

“We’ll sweep through the camp, put out these fires, and make sure no one’s lingering around here.  Start bringing your people up from the cellar when we give you the sign,” Dame Orinoco said.  She raised two mailed fingers in the air, gesturing to the slow-moving platoons.  “In the meantime, let’s get our master of physic down to see your wounded.  ‘Nauts, fan out.”

A familiar hiss went off in his helmet as he raised his gun-arm again, moving past the charred house.  “Zig here, Communicator wound up,” the tech’s voice piped up tinnily in his ears.  “Any news from below?”

Our camp’s been ransacked.  A mob of thugs attacked our people for flying a Delian flag.  Whatever craziness we saw in Two Forks, it looks like it might be migrating through the woods. And, oh yeah, the Golden Caravan definitely had a hand in this.

“Nothing good, how about that?” he said, shaking his head.  “Hold tight for more soon.”

He flicked the switch at his collar back to receiving and pressed forward. 
And tell Kelley to start getting some answers out of our prisoners
, he thought, suppressing a shiver. 
‘Cause whatever kind of fight this is, I think we’re losing it.

Chapter Fifteen

A Mouthful

Dame Miri stepped carefully through the mud.  Her stolen boots squelched against the marshy gray-brown soil, and little brown crickets and jumping spiders flung themselves out of her way at every step like bursts of verminous confetti.  She was grateful, for once, that these ranine-powered boots were as tight as they were; an unbroken wall of clothes from shoe to waist meant it was that much more unlikely she’d get a spider or a tick on her bare flesh. 
Keep telling yourself that, Miri Dearie
, she said, brushing a cloud of gnats out of her face. 
You’ve probably got a dozen blood-suckers hitching a ride on you already.

The marshland had snuck up on her as she followed her mental image of the blocky-faced ‘naut.  It was hard to believe that this swampy route was the way the kidnappers had chosen to drag Lundin and Elia and Martext, especially if they were moving on foot too.

Miri breathed a heavy sigh through her nose, keeping her mouth closed to keep the gnats out. 
Positive thinking
, she said determinedly. 
Maybe this way is a shortcut to badguy central. 
She had been pressing all night, with only a few hours’ sleep near dawn, in an effort to gain ground on the captors.  The ranine coils in her too-tight boots were whining with exertion with every long stride she took.  The idea that she might be cutting off a corner in her pursuit was a lovely one to indulge in.

The brown mask was resting on top of her head now, like a flat, creepy hat.  It was somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, and the golden illumination wasn’t much use in daylight.  Dame Miri flipped the mask down to its proper position every few minutes or so, to take a new bearing on the ‘naut she was connected to.  It seemed to work best when actually worn.  Resting on her head like this, she only had the vaguest sense of a pull north towards the big guy.  When she wore it, every craggy line in his thick features was visible to her, like he was standing across the clearing.

I wonder if he sees me coming towards him
, she thought, spinning her wheels on mental ground she’d travelled before during this summertime walk. 
Or if he sees his dead partner walking home. 
Her fond hope was that his mask was showing him an image of his partner, smiling brightly, and put her location as back at the base of the hill where Dame Miri had left her.  If the masks were designed to show the locations of people, and not simply other masks, it didn’t seem too far-fetched an idea.  If that were the case, then her approach to the hideout of these mystery ‘nauts would be completely invisible.

If, instead, the masks are broadcasting their locations out to other masks, with a picture of whoever’s wearing or carrying it at the time, then these goons will be waiting to welcome me by name
. 
Spheres, it’s frustrating not to have any idea how they’ve made this stuff happen. 

She felt the thin weight of the journal inside the pocket of her filthy blazer and smiled.  Amazing that the little leather volume, with all Lundin’s spellcasting notes, had stayed put through her daring forest flight. 
All these weeks being around people trying to figure out the
why
of magic has me spoiled
, she thought. 
It’s not enough just to have a magic mask that does exactly what I need.  If I don’t understand the mechanism behind it, it drives me crazy.

“I miss you idiots,” she murmured.  For a moment, the techs’ faces seemed to be floating in front of her too, along with the enemy ‘naut.  She shook her head and pushed a cluster of reeds aside with the point of her black knife, trying not to touch anything with her bare hands.  They looked like cattails, but one never knew what might be poisonous in a strange marsh like this.  Even the most benign-looking things could be dangerous.

A cavernous rumble to her right made her freeze. 
Which means that the dangerous-looking things are that much worse
, she thought, slowly turning her head.

Most amphibians in the Tarmic were small enough to fit three in your palm.   And most frogs or toads would be perfectly happy to waddle on top of each other in a person’s hand, not showing aggression towards anything bigger than a marsh fly.  Laziness; skittishness; griminess; deliciousness (to certain tastes); these were the traits most Delians associated with your run-of-the-mill puddle jumper.

Not so with the grisly toad.

Its eyes glared across the marsh at her, as big as summer melons, with jet-black horizontal stripes for pupils.  Its hulking shoulders were tan, speckled with black warts.  From its throat all the way down its barrel-sized belly, it was a deep red, the color of spoiled wine or old blood.  Rows of long spines down its back, starting in pairs just behind the bulging eyes, were brindled with the same unwholesome red.  Two strange flat circles, behind either eye, were glistening with a sickly sheen.  Jagged serrations outlined the jutting upper jaw like a goose’s beak.  Its mouth was built for grasping and tearing.  A household dog would vanish into that capacious gullet in a single swallow.  The thing was the size of a prize hog, and aside from its powerful legs and its stubby head, it was nothing but an animated stomach.  And if there was one thing Dame Miri knew about stomachs, remembering her own pangs before a little scrounged fruit this morning, it was that they got hungry.

Dame Miri felt her mouth grow dry as she looked the grisly toad over.  It was nearly thirty meters away, but she saw the muscles in its massive back legs, meatier than a cow’s, and knew that nature’s ranine coils were better than anything a workshop could hope to devise.  Thirty meters would vanish in two jumps. 
Maybe it’s not hungry
, she thought, wrapping her fingers tighter around the knife.  Unlike big bears, which tended to scrounge on dozens of little meals in the course of a day, grisly toads tended to follow the pattern of big snakes, as far as she remembered: find one big meal, take it in whole, and digest it over a long night’s sleep. 
Maybe it was sleeping, with a nice full belly, and I just walked too close. 
Very smoothly, she lifted a leg and backed away, her boots making only a tiny wet noise in the mud.

The grisly toad’s throat spread out like a blimp, flaring bright red in the afternoon sun.  The same ground-shaking ribbit that had stopped her in her tracks earlier assailed her ears again.  Even worse, the spines in its back raised skyward like a platoon of pikemen with weapons at the ready.

“Burn me,” Dame Miri sighed.

Then the toad jumped.

A single effortless hop carried it a dozen meters.  It landed with an explosion of water and mud and leapt again, like a boulder skipping over the surface of a lake.  Dame Miri raised her arms as it plowed into the mud only about three body lengths away from her, uprooting plants and showering her legs with gray sludge.  Her eyes widened as it opened its mouth and a fleshy fist came rocketing towards her head.  She swiveled so the tongue, as thick as a young tree trunk, caught her on the tricep instead of squarely between the eyes.  It felt like a battering ram against her arm.  A swat like that could easily break her bones if it hit her in the wrong place.  There was a squelching sound as the gluey tongue latched on to her sleeve, and then she was flying sideways through the air as the grisly toad yanked her back towards its jagged mouth.

Spheres, it’s fast! 
As it dragged her, Dame Miri kicked one leg towards the ground, extending it perpendicular to her hip.  The instant her sole connected with the mud, she hopped as hard as the ranine coils in that one boot would let her.

The jump wasn’t nearly strong enough to rip her away from the grisly toad’s grip, as intended.  Instead, she went arcing over the toad’s head and pulled the meaty tongue behind her like a great thick leash.  Its head jerked upwards as its own tongue flapped across the length of its face.  The animal shuddered and snorted as the base of its tongue was pressed against its pointy front teeth.  The gluey tonguetip, with Dame Miri attached, ended up behind its own eyes, nearly depositing her amongst the blood-red spines.  She jabbed frantically at the tongue with her knife and curled herself up so she landed in a crouch between the parallel rows of spikes.  The sharp point of one spine tore a cut in her leg as she pressed against the animal’s wide back and jumped again, with fine amphibian form this time.

The tongue detached from her sleeve, tearing the fabric with a wet, sickly rip.  She spun backwards through the air, flipping end over end twice before her boots hit the slippery earth.  Instinct sent her into a back handspring to use up the last of her momentum, but when she felt the weight of her body against her still-injured hands she instantly regretted it.  Her arms crumpled and her legs sank down around her instead of finishing the long, graceful arc she’d intended.

Dame Miri crouched in the mud, her teeth clenched and her hands throbbing with pain.  She fumbled for the knife, which she’d dropped at the landing, and forced her hand to close around it.  She pulled herself to her feet as the grisly toad turned around. 
What I wouldn’t give for a musket right now! 
She cast around for anything else to help her even the score as the beast blinked its baleful eyes at her.

A tendril of blood was hanging over its lower jaw from the punctured tongue.  Rather than try to slurp her up again, the grisly toad trundled forward a few, awkward steps.  There were wicked claws on its webbed feet, and it curled them in the mud.  “Come on,” Dame Miri growled, her violet eyes narrowing.

She blinked.  She’d seen the toad tense for a jump, but now it was gone.  If it hadn’t pounced at her, where had it gone?  Belatedly, she looked up.

The grisly toad was astonishingly high, higher than most rooftops and coming down fast.  She threw herself backwards without a shred of gymnastic grace, crashing into a thicket of cattails that poked against her neck and shoulders.  The beast landed exactly where she’d been, shaking the earth and drenching her in muck.  Dame Miri swiped the hooked blade left and right among the cattails, the sharp edge clearing her some space and felling a whole cluster of the stiff plants.  Glaring down at her, the grisly toad dug its claws into the ground and inflated its throat again with a deafening, sinister rumble.  The bright red bulge filled Dame Miri’s vision; a display of dominance and fury just before she became a meal.

Or
… Miri thought, raising the knife.

The toad’s rumble turned into a querulous gagging sound as she slashed the black blade across the throat sac.  Slimy ichor exploded onto her with a truly astonishing smell.  Dame Miri ignored it as best she could and grabbed a fistful of cattail stems with her other hand. 
Here’s hoping these are poisonous
, she thought.  She thrust the plants into the open flap in the beast’s throat and gave them a twist.

The grisly toad leapt backwards, turning an ungainly somersault in the air.  It scratched at its throat wildly with both front claws, knocking a few of the plants loose but also visibly ripping the torn sac further.  The grisly toad gasped through its open mouth, shuffling its back feet and rolling its eyes like mighty marbles.  Dame Miri stood slowly, keeping her body low and her knife ready.  The big animal was pitiful in its frenzied distress. 

“Next time you’re hungry,” she told it, keeping her voice gentle, “why don’t you go for a deer?”

The grisly toad blinked at her, its mouth gaping.  Then, with a series of wild hops, it broke for the west and kept going until she couldn’t see it amongst the tall bushes.

Dame Miri clenched and unclenched her fingers, lines in her face deepening with the pain.  This woodland stroll had probably set her therapy back another year, if it was even possible now to get her hands back to one hundred percent.  The cut in her leg had a strange bubbly sensation to it that made her whole thigh tingle.  The toad’s spines probably excreted a defensive poison; it would be fun to chronicle the evolving symptoms for the rest of her walk.  Grisly toad ichor was smeared all over her chest and arms, sticky and acrid.  On the plus side, it didn’t seem like the gnats had any interest in getting close to her, thanks to her new and exciting scent.

It’s a good thing I’m probably not going to survive this trip,
she thought,
because no one will believe me afterwards anyway.