The Aeronaut's Windlass (19 page)

“The Aurorans, most probably,” Gwen answered.

“But why would they do such a thing?”

“Economics, mostly.”

“What?”

“The government of Spire Aurora is greedy, corrupt, and inefficient,” Gwen said. “Taxes are quite high. Each habble struggles against its neighbors to claim funding and favors from their government, and the actual business of government is generally neglected. As a result, their enterprises suffer and do not grow—while their population does. So once every generation or so, the Aurorans become aggressive. Their Fleet gobbles up outposts, and in the past entire Spires, plundering their wealth to keep their own Spire going, and getting a lot of their own people killed to reduce the pressure on their population.”

Bridget sounded baffled. “They want to go to war . . . for
money
?”

Gwen snorted. “You’ll never hear them say that. They always manage to find or contrive a rationale. But in the end they are nothing more than glorified pirates. Tension has been building between their Armada and our Fleet for a year or so—mostly raids on Albion merchantmen, and small-scale engagements with Fleet ships.”

“Didn’t think they’d move this soon, though,” Benedict put in. “I don’t think anyone did.”

From the darkness just outside the little circle of light Gwen’s earrings cast, there was a quiet, rather unnerving feline sound.

Bridget tensed and looked down the tunnel. “Rowl says someone is coming.”

“Thank God in Heaven,” Gwen said, peering. “Perhaps it is some of the Guard.” She called, “Hello? Who is that, please?”

A few moments later, eight men in uniforms of the Spirearch’s Guard stepped into the outskirts of Gwen’s light. Two of them were carrying a stretcher, its occupant covered by blankets. Another, wearing the weapon-crystal insignia of a junior officer, touched a finger to his brow and said, “Miss.”

“Lieutenant,” Gwen said. She didn’t recognize the man, but that was hardly unusual. The Guard had several dozen outposts throughout the Spire, with most of two thousand individuals serving. “I’m quite glad to see you. We’ve a wounded civilian here. Can you help us?”

“Sorry, miss,” the man replied. “I’m afraid we’ve duties of our own to attend to.”

“Gwendolyn,” Benedict said.

Gwen shot Benedict a glance. He never called her by her full name. He was waiting for her to look, his face calm, but his eyes were intent. “I’m sure the lieutenant regrets the need to fulfill his duty. It’s nearly miraculous that he is in motion at all this soon after a surprise attack.”

Gwen frowned at her cousin. Then Benedict flexed his left wrist, his gauntlet hand, in a slow circle, and with a cold shock Gwen realized what he meant.

The attack had happened only moments ago. The four of them had been involved in it, had seen it happening, and yet they’d barely had time to duck into the tunnel for safety and apply rapid field dressings to poor Barney Astor. Yet here stood a full squad of the Guard, already armed and organized and carrying a casualty on a stretcher. And, Gwen noted, wearing large field packs as well.

No one could have thrown that together in mere moments, not in the terror and confusion currently raging through the habble. Not unless they’d known the attack was coming.

And who would know better than the enemy? An enemy wearing Guard uniforms, operating in secret—an enemy who would have no compunction in killing anyone they came across in order to maintain their disguise.

Someone like herself, for example.

Gwen’s heart started pounding so loudly she fancied she could hear it.

Benedict gave her a microscopic nod, then deliberately closed his eyes and turned back to the wounded man.

Closing his eyes. He’d done that on purpose, so that she could see it. Why?

Ah. Obviously, yes.

Gwen pivoted back to the false Guardsmen, raised her left hand, and discharged her gauntlet into the officer’s face from less than five feet away.

Chapter 13

Spire Albion, Habble Morning, Ventilation Tunnels

T
here was a truly blinding flash of light. When one discharged a gauntlet, the light was bright enough to clearly show the bones of one’s hand through the seemingly translucent flesh. The force of the gauntlet’s blast screamed into the echoing expanse of the tunnel, smashing into the officer like a blazing sledgehammer. It flung his abruptly limp body to the ground as if he’d been bludgeoned with an enormous club.

Then Gwen willed away the light of the little crystals on her earrings and plunged the tunnel into blackness.

She couldn’t see a thing but a blinding swirl of colors—and her own eyes had been at least partly shielded from the light of the gauntlet’s discharge. The false Guardsmen who had been able to see the crystal directly would be in even worse shape. Absolutely no one would be able to see in the sudden contrast of brilliance and pitch-blackness.

No one but one of the warriorborn.

Gwen dropped to the floor as a sudden sound she had never heard before, a snarl indistinguishable from the coughing roar of a large hunting cat, burst forth from the blackness. There was a quick, scuffling sound of boots pressed sharply against the stone floor, an exhalation, and then a cry of pain in the darkness. There were more scuffling sounds, a voice shouting something in Auroran, more screams, and then the flash of a gauntlet gave her a burned-picture image—two men were already on the ground, and Benedict was locked in grips with a third man, whose gauntlet had gone off while Benedict, fighting bare-handed, held it aimed at a fourth enemy.

That flash image gave Gwen only an instant to understand where her cousin stood, and an even briefer time in which to act. She aimed her own gauntlet wide of Benedict’s position and triggered another shot, sending a blast in the general direction of the disguised invaders. She had no idea whatsoever whether she’d hit friend or foe, but thought it a very good idea not to remain in the same place, in case any of the Aurorans had the same idea she’d had. She rolled to her left until her shoulder fetched up rather painfully against a cold stone wall.

There were the sounds of more movement in the darkness, scuffling noises, blows struck—and then a short, sharp gasp.

Bridget.

God in Heaven, in the frantic moment of danger, Gwen had forgotten about their companion.

“Stop, Albion!” snarled a voice in a heavy accent. “Or the girl dies.”

Light rose again, this time from one of the intruders, holding up an illumination crystal. Four forms lay on the ground, utterly still, and as Gwen blinked her eyes, struggling to peer into the new illumination, she saw Benedict holding a fifth man by the throat all but entirely suspended from the ground, with his boots barely resting on the floor. There was blood on her cousin’s hands and splattered across his naked chest.

The invaders holding the stretcher had dropped it. There was not a casualty beneath its blankets—instead it had been stacked with leather satchels set with fuses. They’d had only a brief introduction to the devices in their munitions lectures, but Gwen knew enough to recognize a military-grade explosive charge when she saw it.

Only a few feet to her right, one of the invaders stood behind Bridget. He held her throat in one hand, and with the other had trapped one of her arms behind her. Fresh burn marks on his uniform at one shoulder suggested that the second blast of Gwen’s gauntlet had found a target.

Bridget’s eyes were wide and furious, her neck bent at an angle that suggested she was in pain. Her captor stared at Benedict over Bridget’s head, the light of the crystal gleaming off of his feline eyes.

“Put him down,” growled the enemy warriorborn.

Benedict bared his teeth, but her cousin released the fifth man, who slid to the floor like so much limp vattery meat, and let out a low groan. Gwen took time to note that the remaining invaders were now spread out, the nearest two kneeling so that those standing behind them had a clear field of fire. All of them held gauntlets aimed and ready—several of them pointing directly at Gwen. She, unfortunately, did not have her own gauntlet aimed at them—and she rather thought that if she moved her left arm at all, she’d never know it when they fired.

“Three men in three seconds,” the Auroran said to Benedict in a low, flat tone. “Not terrible. But I’d have taken you if the little girl hadn’t gotten lucky with the second shot.”

Benedict lifted his left hand, his gauntlet’s crystal smoldering with light.

The Auroran smiled very slightly and drew Bridget a little more fully between himself and Benedict. “How sure are you of your aim, Albion? Fire and my men will kill you and your little girl. And once you’re dead, I’ll kill this one and move on.”

“Shoot him, Benedict,” Bridget grated. “He smells. I would rather—”

The Auroran flexed his fingers slightly, and Bridget’s words abruptly ceased. He put his lips close to her ear and said, “The men are talking.”

“If I stand down,” Benedict said, “you’ll kill her anyway. What reason do I have not to at least take you with us?”

“My word,” the Auroran said. “You go down. That’s how it is. But you can save them. Stand down and I’ll tie these others up and leave them unharmed.”

Benedict stared at the other warriorborn for a silent moment. Then he said, “Give me your name.”

The Auroran inclined his head. “Diego Ciriaco, master sergeant, First Auroran Marines.”

“Benedict Sorellin, Spirearch’s Guard,” Gwen’s cousin said.

“Benedict Sorellin,” Ciriaco said, “you have my word.”

“Remember my name,” Benedict said.

And then he lowered his gauntlet, an oddly calm expression on his face.

“Will,” the Auroran told him. Then he turned to his fellow Aurorans and said, “You will fire on my command.”

Gwen abruptly realized that while her gauntlet was not pointed at any of the armed men facing them, it
was
pointed at something else.

“You will
not
,” she snapped in a sudden cold tone, doing everything she could to copy her mother’s furious, imperious voice of command, the one she used only on special occasions. “If anyone fires or harms any of us, I swear to God in Heaven that I will discharge my gauntlet into your explosives. It would not be the end I had hoped for, but it will be quick, and if I die defending Albion from Auroran invaders, I should not count my life wasted. Can you say as much, Mister Ciriaco? Can your companions?”

There was a moment of utter, crystalline silence.

Then Ciriaco let out a low hiss and snarled, “Hold fire.”

Benedict’s teeth shone in a hard smile. “In that case, sir, perhaps I could offer to accept
your
surrender. My terms will be a great deal more generous than those you offered me. Release the young lady, lay down your arms, and you will be taken as prisoners of war.”

Ciriaco snorted. “Only to be tortured for information by your masters? I prefer the explosion, sir.”

“Then we are at an impasse.”

Ciriaco grunted an acknowledgment. “True enough. But that balance will inevitably change. Someone will be along.”

“I assure you, sir,” Gwen said, “I will have no compunctions whatever about blowing up any number of your fellows who might have the appallingly bad taste to interrupt us.”

The warriorborn stared at her, his face unreadable. “Conversely, miss, if more of your own people appear, your threat seems rather diminished. How many of your own folk are you willing to kill along with all of us?”

“Even in a draw, the advantage is mine,” Gwen said. “While I keep you pinned here, you cannot complete whatever objective it is that you have been given. You do not hold a winning hand.”

He showed his teeth. “Yet. How long, do you think, before your people sort out enough of this mess to send armed patrols through the side tunnels? Hours? A day?” He nodded toward the unconscious form of Barnabus Astor. “How long does your wounded man have before he succumbs? I know when to expect my people. And I know that they’ll be armed. It shouldn’t surprise me at all if in the next moment, a long gunner shot you dead from far down the tunnel and out of your sight before you even realized the danger. Time is on my side, miss, not yours.”