The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (24 page)

Another Two Forks ‘naut jumped when he saw Dame Orinoco tracking him with her gun.  She read his trajectory and fired as he leapt through the air.  His unarmored calf flashed red, and he landed in an ungainly heap.  “Dame Orinoco!” a voice called out.  She looked up to see Dame Julie launching herself through the air.  The Petronaut had a sabre in each hand.  She landed lightly on her feet and gave Orinoco her sword back.  She took it in her good hand and turned as the last Two Forks ‘naut came racing towards them, madness bright in his golden-eyed mask.  The three Cavaliers raised their swords to meet him.

*****

“Head for the upper fields!”

“Lost, all is lost—”

“Clear the town!  We regroup at the fields and take back our homes!”

“People are running,” Columbine said, looking out the doorway at the exodus as their new friends and neighbors called out to each other.  It was the last of the adults leaving now, and a few of the bigger midlings.  The kids like her were long gone.

“They’ve got sense,” Ariell muttered, gingerly untying the strings of the leather pouch.  “Will you come help me, since this is your damn idea anyway?”

Columbine scurried over to her sister as Ariell held out the pouch.  “Gently, gently,” her older sister said as Columbine took the pouch and lowered her little fingers inside.  She grabbed a red stone between her thumb and index finger.  It was so funny; it didn’t feel warm, or dangerous, or anything.  Just like a normal little pebble, but perfectly round.  Amazing how powerful a little thing could be, depending on what was inside.

Ariell was holding her stonebow nice and steady.  Columbine gently placed the red stone inside the fabric thong, and Ariell pulled back the lever.  The wing-shaped metal arms pulled back ever so slightly, and the cords cocked into place with a little
snick
. 

“If we can fight them off now, everyone won’t have to regroup at the fields,” Columbine said, cinching the pouch closed and running for the door.

“One thing at a time, little sis,” Ariell said, following behind.  “You just find me a target.”

The hut they were staying in was a little ways behind the cooking house, a quick jog from the village square.  All the fighting was over by the gate now, it sounded like.  That’s where the big explosion had come from a few moments ago.  Even the flying machine was on that side of town now, noisy and terrifying overhead.  Ignoring the few running people—who, to be fair, were ignoring them—Columbine and Ariell made a beeline for the corner of the cooking house and looked towards the gate.

There was a smoking crater where the security committee must have set up the fire gun.  One of the Petronauts in black was helping the skull-faced one, clearly injured, limp towards the gate. 
Good
, Columbine thought with satisfaction.  But there was a serious mess unfolding as the other security committee men, with their masks and their claws, were about to be slaughtered by three black-and-white Delians with swords.

Columbine tapped on the wall of the cooking house impatiently, looking over her shoulder.  “Ariell, come on,” she hissed urgently.  “They need our help now!”

“Shut up.” Ariell took a position behind Columbine as her little sister pointed.  It was a long, long shot; but Ariell was the best.  As her sister raised the stonebow and sighted through the metal notches at the end of the stock, Columbine opened the pouch and poised her hand to reach in and grab the next red stone.  There were seven Delians attacking their home, but Columbine and her big sister had more than enough red stones to fix that.

The cables made a quiet twangy sound as Ariell’s stonebow fired.

*****

Dame Julie kicked the masked man in the chest, sending him reeling backwards.  Flanking him from behind, Sir Xiaoden raised his sword to pummel him senseless.  And then the black-and-white Petronaut exploded.

Dame Orinoco shielded her face against the shower of dirt and metal.  She blinked, lowering her arm as she scanned the field.  There was Julie; there were Kelley and Gaulda, frozen on their way to the gate behind her; there were two of the fake ‘nauts, one without a hand and the other clutching his leg, prone on the ground; there was the third one, jumping away from the distracted Delians... and there was a crater where Sir Xiaoden had been.

There were scraps of twisted black metal embedded in the earth, and, four meters away, the hilt of a broken sabre.  Sir Xiaoden was completely gone; in fighting prime one instant, and dust in a crater the next.  The first Petronaut killed on the battlefield since the days of Queen Tess.

And it happened under my command.

Dame Orinoco’s eyes unfocused in her helmet for a long moment.  Then, in a flash, she was aware of Sir Kelley and Dame Gaulda right in front of her.  Gaulda was holding her helmet in her hands, her strong-jawed face dirty and twisting with pain.

“Get her out of here,” she snapped to no one, reaching out to help Kelley propel her along.

“Get Mathias,” Gaulda said as they hustled her out through the main gate.  Her voice was thin.  “That shooter will... pin him down...”

They leaned Dame Gaulda against the outside of the fence.  She nodded, her strong face ashen but her eyes burning with intensity. 
The first Petronaut killed…
  Kelley and Orinoco looked at each other.  She knew her co-commander was just as aware of the bitter milestone as she was.

The ‘nauts swept back through the wooden gate.  Dame Julie was tussling with the last masked ‘naut.  He’d gotten inside her guard during the surprise, and, despite the battering he’d already taken, was perilously close to bloodying yet another of Delia’s Petronauts.

Sir Kelley swiveled his wrist, raised his arm, and shot the masked man through the head.

The Cavaliers turned to him.  Dame Julie looked down at the farmer at her feet, bleeding out in the dirt.  “Sir Kelley—”

“We recover Sir Mathias, and we fall back,” he said.  “And if you see anyone with a gun, you let them know they’re not the only ones.  Not anymore.”

The three Petronauts shared a look.  Then they fanned out silently and advanced into town.

*****

The last farmer was down on the ground, moaning.  The snipers Iggy had scared off the roof had jumped into the fray against him moments after he’d dismounted the last rider.  Sir Mathias was marveling that they fought him out to the end when he heard the explosion. 
One fireball wasn’t enough?  What are you doing back there?
he thought, turning towards the gate on the far side of the village, and running a quick head count of his team again.  He spotted Kelley, Gaulda, two black-and-white Cavaliers, and a smoking crater.

Only two?

As he watched, one of the Cavaliers—probably Julie— leapt into the crater and looked around like a lost soul.

His jaw dropped. 
No.  That’s impossible.  We couldn’t have—

“Mathias, come in!  Shooter across the square!”

Iggy had been muttering something in his helmet during the fight, but he hadn’t been able to make it out.  This time, her strident voice launched him into action.  He broke north to the nearest cover, the wall of the longhouse where the snipers had been.  Against explosives, he didn’t know what kind of cover a building made of mud would be, but at least he wouldn’t be in sight.

It’s impossible.  We can’t have lost someone.  There hasn’t been a Petronaut killed since—

He slapped himself on the helmet, hard.  There was no time to dwell on it.  That shooter, whoever he was, had to be stopped.  If he could pick off a Cavalier from across town with a single shot, then none of them were safe, even in retreat.

“Let’s get him, Iggy,” Mathias said under his breath.  “Where is he?”

“North side, it looked like.  Tell you more in a moment.”

As he looked up, Ironsides came barreling east towards the village square.  He could just make out the tip of Iggy’s musket over the edge of the machine.  She would plant herself up high and try to take out the shooter before he got off another round.

Sir Mathias exhaled three times, fast, his heart pounding in his chest.  And then he ran past the far side of the long building and broke left, in the direction of the shooter.  He and Iggy would come at the bastard from both sides.  With any luck, they’d both be alive to meet in the middle.

*****

There was no time to celebrate.  The girls watched the flying machine start rocketing their direction before the dust began to settle in the crater.  Columbine and Ariell ducked out of view into the empty cooking house.  A pot of water was still bubbling noisily over the wood stove.  Ariell’s bloodless rabbit lay draped where she’d left it against the full wooden bowl, looking more like a rag doll than a meal in its long brown fur.

“Come on, come on!”  Ariell said.  Columbine shook herself and fumbled with the pouch.  Her heart was beating as fast as the big motor on that flying machine out there.  She forced a deep breath out and, as calmly as she could manage, pinched a red stone between her fingers.  She carefully lowered it into the sling.  Ariell flung the handle of the stonebow back until it clicked, and started for the door.

“Wait!”

“What?” she said, her scowling midling face contorted with a flurry of emotions; pride, disbelief, terror, remorse, worry.  Columbine held her hands up to her sister to wait.  A sudden premonition had hit her about the open doorway.

She scanned the room and spotted the ladder leading to the roof.  There was a hatchway in the ceiling the last of the snipers had swung closed after their retreat all those long minutes ago.  Columbine rushed over to the ladder and climbed as high as she could.  There was a terrible stink wafting down from the roof.  She held her breath and grabbed a long rolling pin hanging from the wall rack, along with the tongs and spatulas and scrapers.  She looped one leg around the ladder, holding herself in place, and pushed the rolling pin upwards against the hatch with both hands.  The unlocked hatch flipped up and out, landing with a thunk on the roof, and sent a fresh wave of the disgusting smell down the ladder at her.  She dry heaved a little and scrambled down the ladder as fast as she could.

From far above, a musket ball came whizzing into the building.  It burst through the wall behind the top of the ladder, right where she would have been standing had she climbed all the way up.  She’d been right; the machine had been waiting to shoot her sister.

“Now, now, now!”  she shrieked to Ariell, pointing towards the open door.  Ariell ducked outside, raised the stonebow high, and sighted into the air.

“Burn me,” Iggy swore as she started to reload her musket.  Then, with a rush of noise and light, the world ignited.

*****

The Petronauts stopped breathing when they saw the explosion hit Ironsides.  A huge burst of orange and red flame bloomed out of the machine’s base as the shot hit it dead on.  Not even such a powerful weapon could disintegrate Ironsides outright, but the blow still threw up a shower of molten metal and debris.  Ironsides bucked forward wildly.  Dame Orinoco watched as Iggy’s body was flung free from her machine, hurled end over end into the treetops where it disappeared from sight.  The crippled Aerial vehicle, its powerful fan in pieces and its precarious balance upended, sank earthwards like the pile of stone it was, trailing gouts of burning ‘tum.  The earth shook as it landed, just outside Two Forks’ northwestern gate.

“Sir Kelley,” Orinoco said, turning to the Recon ‘naut.  Her throat was dry.  Sir Kelley was simply staring, frozen in place with his truncheon at his side.

“Kelley!”

He shook himself back to sense.  “We’ll get Iggy,” the Cavalier said  “You get to Sir Mathias, and you both head into the forest.  There’s no fighting this.”

He still looked at her, unable to form words.  “Sir Kelley,” she asked clearly, “will you second a full retreat order?”

Very slowly, he nodded.

Dame Orinoco gestured the retreat to Dame Julie, who ran back towards the gate and the waiting Shock Trooper.  Dame Orinoco sprinted for the stockade and cleared it in a great leap; out to the forest to recover Iggy’s body.

Sir Kelley stood in the dusty path.  Three ‘nauts were down in as many minutes.  And with Mathias pinned down north in this hateful village, alone with the shooter, his junior ‘naut was bound to be next.

“No more,” Kelley said to himself, his voice low and quiet.  His black arms pumping, he ran deeper into Two Forks.

*****

Sir Mathias fought to keep his breathing under control.  He felt like his panting must have been audible for ten meters in any direction, and the pounding of his heart for another ten.  Any gun that could bring down Ironsides with a single shot would light him up so hard his house would burn down too, back in Delia.

“Good old Delia,” he mumbled to himself, unable to stop.  “Where the worst thing a farmer can do is sell you rotten eggs.”  Not gun down your friends, ruthlessly, irresistably, blowing them out of the sky or turning their bodies into dust.  And for what?  Why?  What was wrong with this burning town, that the people here hated them so much?  How could you fight that kind of hate?

Mathias pressed his back against the rounded house, trying to keep his mind from spinning.  The shots had come from the other long house on the square, the one Iggy had bombed.  He was two homes and a flower garden away from her murderer.  He had a good position, and could easily find more cover as he advanced on the bastard, for whatever that was worth.  With luck, he could get in his shot before the man even knew he was there.  Surprise was the only thing he had going for him.  This sniper was a better shot than him, with better reflexes and a much deadlier weapon.  But even the coldest monster could be surprised—