Half Discovered Wings (37 page)

The eyeholes, pooled in shadow, focused on the two visitors
and the robed arms tensed against tightly bound rope, which was
fastened to a ring attached to the cell floor.

‘
Come to give me another beating?’ The voice was
hoarse.

‘
We will if you don’t tell us where your buddies are hiding
out.’

‘
What do you want to know that for? We out-number the people of
this town two to one.’ Blood dribbled out from under the mask, more
black than red. ‘You’re pathetic, all of you. Staying here when you
could have left … This is Shianti territory!’

‘
Only because you say it is,’ Gabel said. ‘Which means nothing.
Now tell us where the rest of you rally.’

The hooded
prisoner huffed derisively and lowered his head.

Caeles strode forward and pulled off the mask. The force of
it knocked the Luxman face down, and a mop of filthy blonde hair
unravelled.

‘
You want to see my face?’ the hoarse voice asked. ‘You think
that’ll weaken me somehow?’

‘
So show me,’ Caeles demanded. When the Luxman didn’t move, he
grabbed the back of the robe and pulled back.

Her face was bruised and bloodied. A cut over her eyebrow had
gone septic, and her lower lip was a fat lump, cracked in several
places. Her eyes were dull with lack of sleep. She spat on Caeles’
bare feet.

‘
Where’s the camp?’ he asked quietly, suppressing his surprise.
When he received no answer he looked to Gabel, who shook his head.
‘
Where is it
?
’

Gabel gritted
his teeth. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

Caeles spun
behind the woman and twisted her robes around his fist.
Bracing his knee against her spine, he wrenched on the robe until
its hem cut into the flesh of her neck. Her arms, restrained by the
rope, jerked to try and release her throat, but could do nothing.
Her lips touched and parted like a frog’s.

‘
Tell me,’ Caeles demanded.

Gabel watched as something burst in her right eye. The white
suddenly swam with red, washing around the iris like the guts of a
freshly split fish. Her throat made a sound like a slow puncture.
Just as her eyes turned upward, Caeles threw her down and placed
his boot on her back, shifting all of his weight onto her
body.

‘
Tell me!’

‘
I won’t!’ she wept, muffled by her hair, but her voice
betrayed her words, and as Caeles wrenched her back up on her knees
again, she gasped in fear. ‘All right.’

‘
Where.’

‘
Follow the river, to the east side. Keep going until it
ends.’

‘
How far?’

Her speech was
broken with sobs. The eye with the burst blood vessels was round
like a rusty button. ‘Ten minutes on horse.’

‘
Let’s go,’ Gabel said. ‘We need to go back to the
bordello.’

‘
What for?’ Caeles dropped the girl, but didn’t take his eyes
off her.

‘
I need the thing – the vial, with the medicine in
it.’

‘
That Doc Fenn gave us? Why?’

‘
Use your imagination,’ Gabel said, and pushed past him. They
went past the throne chamber and Gabel stopped to look inside, then
continued.

‘
What’s the matter?’ Caeles asked.

‘
I saw Rowan in there before.’

‘
She’s not there now?’

‘
No. She was with Turenn. They were holding hands.’

‘
So we’ll beat on him later. I’ve lost my patience with that
guy. Let’s go.’

‘
No. I’m not going to let him spend any more time with her than
he already has. You can find her and take care of her.’

‘
Not a chance. I’m not a soldier anymore, and I don’t take
orders. Rowan will be fine.’

‘
Caeles, please. I need you to look after her. Don’t let her
stay with Turenn. I’ve got this.’

~

Fury is a thing that envelops you
,
Sarai was thinking.
Whereas rage is blind
and unstoppable, fury can be controlled, even funnelled. Control
it, Sarai. Find a suitable target to vent it upon.

She was
crouched atop a smouldering building. Smoke drifted through the
wooden roof, but it was not yet burning and Sarai could sense that
the structure was still firm. All around her was a collapsing city,
a town of people who had suffered the same trials that she once
suffered.

I am dark
, she thought as she
stood.
But I am
not
darkness.

Ashes whorled in the air and up above the tree-line. Sarai
was shocked by the amount of smoke in the air, but she knew that
there was nothing she could do about it.

Through the
smoke she saw retreating figures. The attackers had decided to
leave. Either they felt that their evil job had been accomplished,
or they had been repelled by Lady Firrok’s obedient
apprentices.

Sarai was not about to let the surviving Luxers escape. She
stepped to the edge of the smouldering building and dropped down to
street level, where the smell of burning wood was stronger. There
was less smoke there though, and this was better for Sarai’s
sensitive eyes.

She had not
changed from her all-over suit, but she didn’t always wear the
facebelt. She now lifted it from her shoulders and fastened it over
her eyes, in order to better sense the world around her. She was
privy to every disturbance in the molecules of the air.

Running was
like second nature. She had always moved fast. Now she vanished
down one street and around a turn in the road without decelerating.
The moment she left the heat of the closest burning dwelling she
was on top of the retreating Luxers. There were two of them. One
was apparently wounded, a bullet hole in his abdomen that was
bleeding profusely. The bullet had cut right through.

‘
I see you have encountered my new friend Joseph,’ she said,
her supple limbs already stretching to their limit as she pivoted.
Her right foot caught the injured Luxer in the mouth. As her body
righted itself, she threw her knuckles hard into the face of the
second.

‘
Your voice,’ he tried to say. ‘You’re a—’

He never
finished. Perhaps his teeth still vibrated with the words he had
been about to utter, but they were far from his mouth now,
clattering across the fire-blistered pavement to the right. Blood
spluttered from his lips.

The injured Luxer fell, too weak for hand-to-hand combat.
Sarai stepped on his bent knees, pushing them straight.

‘
Get off him! I’ll
kill
you…’

‘
You may try,’ she allowed, luxuriating in the anonymity the
voice-temper of her mask granted. People respected her more when
they thought that she was a man.

She bobbed up and down on the other Luxer’s knees, and
relished the twinned cracking sound they made. The Luxer screamed;
his comrade lurched toward her, but she had trained for years with
her kukri blades and his blow never landed. He fell to the ground
next to his fellow attacker.

‘
Scathac.’

Sarai turned
on the spot, still in position on the Luxer’s knees.

‘
I was just speaking of you,’ she said. ‘The bullets of Joseph
Gabel fly far.’

The factotum
approached confidently, apparently full of emotions that fought so
clearly on his face that Sarai couldn’t tell them apart.

He said, ‘You
are angry at these people, right?’

She nodded.
‘Yes.’

‘
And you know how it feels to lose somebody.’

‘
Yes.’ Sarai dragged her fingers through her hair; it was
clogged with blood and soot. ‘You know that.’

Gabel shook
ash from his jacket. ‘Then come with me. We have something to
do.’

~

Outside the smouldering town of Iilyani, past the wide
clearing, along the path of the almost dried river and deep into
the forest, there was a second clearing. It was wide – it had to
be, so the members could sit far enough apart to avoid detection by
the goyles – and all around the perimeter sat fifty or so Luxmen
and Luxwomen. Each one was hooded and robed in the traditional
white, each bearing the red Crosswheel upon their sleeves or
chests. Their necks, chests and hands glinted with steel armour.
They sat in trepidation, each excited by the night’s events – and
the surprise meeting that had called them all
afterwards.

Flames
flickered in the very centre of the clearing, a great fire lit with
machine iconoil to produce a yellow heatless flame. It wasn’t a
pyre, however, but a great flaming crucifix ten feet high,
illuminating the robed figures sitting patiently around it, and the
man standing before them: the caller of the meeting, the leader of
this Luxer horde: the Grand Wizard.

He turned his head and opened his arms, welcoming his group.
‘Allies!’ he called, and they cheered back at him. ‘Fighters in the
cause against the scourge. Tonight we have moved a step closer to
ridding the filthy ghetto town of its plague of rats.’

Cheers erupted
from the members all around him. The Grand Wizard – whose real name
was Dennis McNair, though none of his followers knew that – was
adept at speechmaking. The Luxers never really needed much
encouragement anyway; they were each fuelled by their own desires,
the ambition, excitement and pride in their mission.

McNair had prepared a special speech for tonight. He knew
that one day they would strike Iilyani hard enough to cripple its
defences ready for the final onslaught. For months this speech had
been floating inside McNair’s mind, being tweaked and polished,
waiting for this night, when the town would finally fall and its
citizens burned or fled.

He called out
to the Luxers, crowned in flames, the giant Crosswheel on his chest
dark against the ghostly robes. ‘The purge will reach a critical
moment this following night, my Brothers and Sisters. We all bear
the Crosswheel to show our love for one another, for the White
Race, and for the love of God and Christ Himself. The Cross,
standing for the sacrifice Christ made! The Circle which represents
the wheel of creativity, the circle of unity, motion, and the
ancient Aryan icon for Light! We bear the Crosswheel for the whole
of the White Race!’

Again, the Luxers cried out. As the Grand Wizard made his
speech, they all rose and cheered in a continuous din. The speech
was simply adding to the sense of family and mission. Luxer rallies
that were held without the Wizard always ended the same anyway: in
celebration, the consumption of alcohol and drugs, and often group
fornication.

The party continued as the speech reached its crescendo.
Behind McNair, the crucifix burned brighter as the fuel was
consumed and released further accelerant. In the middle of all the
excitement, no-one noticed the two outsiders crouching in the
undergrowth just outside the clearing.

~

‘
Give me the thing,’ Gabel whispered harshly. Sarai handed him
the small vial of fluid entrusted to them by the doctor of Goya.
She had travelled quickly and stealthily through what was left of
the town, at one time resorting to scaling a wall and slipping
across a rooftop to navigate around burning wreckage. She reached
Turenn’s bordello and, as Gabel had requested, she found Doctor
Fenn’s medicine and quickly met him at the edge of town, where he
waited with horses.

‘
Is this not for Rowan’s sickness?’ she asked.

‘
It was only in case she has a fit, and she appears recovered
now. She isn’t going to require it.’ Gabel took the vial and
slipped it into his pocket. He was shivering from the cold. ‘Why is
there no heat from that fire?’

‘
I doubt that they would start a real one, out here with those
… things in the trees.’

‘
I suppose that makes sense. They cannot all be stupid. Stay
here.’

‘
Where are you going?’ Sarai asked, her eyes on the
speechmaker, whose face was concealed by his hood.

‘
Do you see those kegs? It appears that the leader here has
planned a party. I am going to give him one. Stay
here
.’

On his stomach Gabel crawled around the edge of the clearing,
behind the gathered Luxers, safe from sight in the shadows of the
trees. He took his time, making certain not to go over dry leaves
or to catch his clothes on any of the thorny flora.

The Grand
Wizard McNair continued to stir the members of the Luxer rally:

‘For centuries we have
been condemned as criminals and racists,’ he yelled, ‘but we know
that it is blind misunderstanding. The Luxers search merely for
Purity. They say we hide behind our hoods and robes – we know they
are truly symbols of humility and anonymity in our selfless
dedication to Christ!’

‘
Amen
!’ the Luxers cried.

‘
The Fiery Cross – often misunderstood as desecration –
represents the truth and light of our Saviour!’

In the undergrowth, Gabel made a face of disgust. He
continued to crawl carefully to avoid detection, and arrived at the
stack of five or six large wooden kegs, each on a stand and fixed
with a tap. Quietly, he removed the cork from each in turn and
poured in a portion of Rowan’s medicine. As the final drop entered
the sixth barrel, Gabel muttered to himself: