Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes (28 page)

55 Exodus

It was plain when I reached my lookout that the exodus was about to begin. The Cheiropt seemed aware of it as well, for the wall crawled with hoplites, and there were artillery batteries in the streets outside. None of them entered the zone, however, and their forces seemed grossly inadequate.

The airships were floating in a line as I’d seen them, anchored to the earth by four iron chains each and manned by the Misfit’s forces. A small corps stood in formation before the platform, in the courtyard surrounding the pyramid. One of the lanes that led to the foundation was lined with people.

A great cheer went up. Teams of ghulim came into sight, marching along the lane with an armed escort, bearing glass tanks between them. The ova had a bloated look, like blisters about to burst open.

One by one the teams reached the pyramid, climbed the stairs, and mounted the platform through an opening before the throne room. The cases were distributed into even rows. This continued, with ghulim going back and forth, until one hundred tanks were arranged there.

Two figures merged from the chamber: Jairus, clad head to foot in scrap-iron armor, and Zilla, robed and veiled as before. I ducked down lower when I saw him, afraid somehow that he would spy me there.

The people began streaming up the gangplank to the transport. Zilla strode to the end of the platform, lifted his hands, and began the incantation. The corps disbanded and scattered to their ships. The Misfit himself made for the flagship anchored before the transport.

The sun wasn’t hot, but the air was still and miserably humid. Sweat streamed down my face and stung my eyes. But the doldrums were soon troubled by the blast of a horn. Anchors were drawn up. The ships began to move toward the street at the head of the line. At the same moment, a muffled explosion rocked a distant quarter of the city.

The Vicar was gesticulating with manic energy now. The salt-encrusted lids of the boxes opened in unison. With a series of pulpy pops that drifted up even to my lookout, a volley of glistening missiles shot into the air, reaching their zenith high above the tallest building, outlined against the sky. Each as it fell opened a pentagonal membrane like a cap detaching from the stipe of a mushroom. At first these seemed to serve merely as parachutes, but then they started to spin, leaving the soft bodies stationary. The creatures bounded through the air as a swarm and went whirring over the necropolis.

I drew my sword and stepped to the parapet. This was the time to stop them, before they scattered over the city. As I drew breath for the fatal plunge, though, I froze. The chimeras weren’t scattering at all, but circling the ships. Zilla was throwing them against the fleet.

Jairus’ warriors made hasty preparations for the onslaught. Terror unmanned the crews. The line drifted into disarray as they left their stations to fend off the monsters. I saw great gouts of blood spring up from those who went down before them.

This was my chance. I leaped into the air, spread my wings, and shot like an arrow toward the flagship. Soon I was nearing the cloud of chimeras. One of them spied me and left the swarm to attack me. Its body glistened with mucus, dun above and pale beneath; it was soft like a mollusk, with a ring of black chelicerae at the base of its suspended body, and eyeballs distributed at random over its lumpy visceral sac.

I hacked the thing from the air by chopping through its wheeling membrane. It was tougher than I’d expected, and almost wrenched the sword from my hand. Now several others turned to attack me. The next one I struck from underneath, severing the body from the pentangle, which then went spinning over my head to drift down among the black nimlathim below. I cut down two more this way, my hot blade slicing through their soft flesh without resistance, spattering me with their sticky white ichor.

I landed on the deck and folded my wings. It was a scene of chaos, strewn with fallen warriors and bits of chimeras. Jairus was steering the ship, fighting, and shouting orders all at once. The neighboring warship drifted unmanned, and he was having to wheel his own out of line to avoid a collision.

As I made my way to the stern I saw a chimera swoop under the envelope and swap a man’s head off. Then it wheeled and came at me. With a shout I ran to meet it. I leaped into the air and sliced it in half with one swing of my sword. The pieces fell on either side but continued to flap on the deck. The clustered eyes swiveled in their fleshy sockets to watch me.

I reached the Misfit. “Well,” he said, “we meet again. You must forgive me for not extending you the usual courtesies.”

“I came to make a proposition. You’ve been betrayed. Let’s make common cause against our enemy. We can settle our differences later.”

“What do you have in mind?” A light glinted in his eyes, and he said: “Be careful.” With a swing of his longsword he chopped down a chimera that was making for me.

“Your ships are falling into disarray,” I said. “They need to pull together into a defensive formation. If you give me some token of authority, I can bear the message to the other ships. Then I’ll attack the creatures from the air.”

“Here.” He drew a signet ring off his hand. “Left-handed spiral, center the transport. They’ll know what that means. And you can tell them to stop firing at the things. They’re more likely to hit each other. Hand weapons only.”

I turned to go. “Wait,” he said. I stopped and turned. “You warned me of this. I’ll remember that.”

“Fairly spoken.” I bowed, then ran the length of the deck and leaped across to the next. The men there were all hiding below. I had to swing down to an embrasure to talk to them. “I bear the seal of your leader,” I said. I told them the plan. “Gird up your loins,” I went on. “The creatures are deadly but not hard to kill. Stand back to back, keep low, and cut them down. Like so!” And with that I dropped a few feet and gutted one that was trying to pick me off the hull.

I climbed back to the upper deck and proceeded to the next ship, where the men were putting up more of a fight. They put the orders into action immediately.

And so I went, leaping from warship to warship until I reached the front of the line. From there I flew all the way to the rear, slaying three creatures en route. It didn’t take long to work my way forward, as most of the ships had already seen what was happening. Soon I was making for the transport itself.

The chimeras were swarming it like flies on a carcass, nipping at the great envelope with their prehensile inner mouthparts, searching for points of weakness above the tiers of up-sweeping slats designed to protect it from missiles. I hacked my way through them and clung to the hull. There were no decks for fighting, only loopholes for firing, and I swung myself over to an embrasure to peer inside. The cabin was small but richly furnished. A woman sat in the berth.

It was Seila.

“Keftu!” she cried. Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Stand back.” I tore off a great cantel of metal and pushed my way inside. “Is this locked?” I pointed at the door.

“What do you think? That I’m free to go as I will?”

“Well, are you?”

She colored. “Try the door and see for yourself.”

An image flashed across my mind: blood in a Moabene alley. “Forgive me,” I said.

Her eyes softened again. “Help us, Keftu. We’re in a maze. No one else knows the way out. You’re an alien. You have the key to every locked door.”

“Trust me, Seila. I’m in a labyrinth myself.”

She nodded toward the hole I’d made. “What’s happening out there?”

“That’s the work of the Sun Mage’s vicar. It seems that Jairus trusted a man whose motives he didn’t understand. The chimeras are swarming this ship. Where are your warriors?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s go find them. Stand back.” I battered the door down with my fists and we began to go through the ship. All of the cabins we looked into were empty.

We finally found the passengers gathered in the galley. There were women and children and men not fit for fighting, all huddled in groups and waiting. Jairus’ huge harem was among them.

“Where are your guards?” I demanded.

Joanna stood up. “They made off at the first sign of trouble. I saw it all. They slid down ropes to the ground. The ones who actually made it were torn to pieces by ghulim.”

There was a metallic groan as the deck began to tilt. “We’re sinking!” someone shrieked. “They’ll chop us to bits when we land!”

“But why?” another voice cried. “It all makes no sense! Why doesn’t Jairus help us?”

“Your master can hardly help himself right now,” I said. “But if I can help you, I will. First I’ll go take care of these ghulim. This is Seila, my friend. She was Jairus’ prisoner, but no longer. Anyone who molests her will answer to me.”

I went back to her cabin and dove out. The chimeras were less thick now, for the warships were drawing near on every side. But the creatures’ work was done: the envelope of the transport was damaged beyond easy repair. The ship was listing to one side and sinking fast. I spiraled to the earth, chopping through two chimeras as I went.

The scene down below was grim. The torn bodies of ten warriors lay scattered across a grove, with the carcasses of perhaps twice as many ghulim. I strode through the charnel-houses in search of the enemy.

A ghul spied me and gave the signal. A pack of them emerged from a grove and came at me. Their eyes blazed with bestial fury; their teeth, filed into sharp fangs, glistened with slaver. They wore claw-gloves like the ones I had fought before.

I scrambled up to the top of a mausoleum. Soon I was surrounded. I hacked them down one by one as they tried to reach me. They were unbelievably fast: by the time I’d laid one’s skull open, another would be coming at me from behind. Without the armor to sustain me I would soon have fallen. As it was I was sorely exhausted by the time I rove the breast of the last ghul. It collapsed upon its mates. Their bodies formed a pyramid around the sides of the mausoleum.

I looked up. The ring had drawn tight around the transport. Only two warships remained outside it. They were drifting against the viaduct, stripped of hands or disabled. The gradually thinning swarm circled the fleet like a cloud of spores.

I leaped down the slope of corpses and set off at a sprint through the cemetery, making for the pyramid. I dashed up to the platform. Zilla was nowhere to be seen. I dove off the edge, extended my wings, and worked my way up to the ships.

The chimeras avoided me now: I had to give them chase. I circled the fleet with the swarm, slicing them up with my sword, punching through their clustered eyes with my fist. It was strange how easy they were to slay.

The decks were dismal scenes. Half Jairus’ warriors were gone. Some had been picked to pieces, others dragged over the edge and dropped.

I continued to circle around with the swarm, coursing now higher, now lower, felling the creatures one by one. Soon there were only ten chimeras, and then only five.

And then at last I wheeled and alit on the flagship. “Well met,” said the Misfit as he hacked one down.

“I found the transport unguarded,” I said. “The warriors had abandoned it and fallen to ghulim on the ground. The chimeras damaged its envelope. It’s sinking.”

Jairus turned to look. “This is it, then.”

“What?”

“The end of our exodus. We gambled it all on this one throw.”

“What do you mean? The battle is almost won.”

“These things were only part of our preparations. There’s no going back now.”

“What have you done?”

“You’ll soon find out,” said the Misfit. “They say that phylites have no memory. We’ll do our best to see that this is something they don’t forget.”

“Duck,” I said. Over Jairus’ head I cut a chimera in two. I picked up the pieces and dropped them overboard. It was the last one. The battle was over.

56 Red Harvest

Jairus strode to the stern of the flagship and raised his arms. The survivors all gathered where they could see him across the space left by the sinking transport. “Men,” he cried, “the exodus has failed, but our mission continues. Are you willing?”

The men shouted their assent with one voice.

“We’ll take three ships, then,” said Jairus. “The
Arrow
, the
Eclipse
, and the
Destroyer
. Those too injured to man their stations must stay behind. They’re already martyrs for our cause. We’ll join them soon enough.”

“What are you doing?” I said, coming up behind him.

He turned and looked down at me. “We’re going to make a holocaust of the fatted cattle of Enoch. One part at least of our plan will succeed.”

“But don’t you see that that’s exactly what Zilla wants? He planned for those chimeras to disable the transport. He wanted to slaughter your people, to end the exodus while leaving your fighting forces intact. He must have known how easy they would be to defeat. He’s using you to accomplish his own ends.”

“That matters little to me, so long as they’re my ends, too. Stay behind with the women and children if you like. This isn’t your fight.”

“I’m making it my fight,” I said. I dove off the side.

“Down with the Dragonfly!” cried Jairus. “A place at my side in battle to the man who brings him down!”

I found myself a target at once. Fireballs and bolts flew at me from all sides. They were too thick to dodge. A ball of brimstone slammed into my back with a shower of sparks. My wings were shivered to splinters. I plunged toward the earth, flaming through the canopy of black needles, and crashed like a meteor of smoking bronze.

*          *          *          *          *

Someone was calling my name: “Keftu!” It was a kind, gentle voice. I thought first of my mother, then Aine. “Keftu!” I opened my eyes.

Joanna was looking down at me, her face framed by her dark red hair. She was cradling my head in her lap. Seila was kneeling beside me, cleaning my sooty brow with a cloth. They were both weeping. My face was wet with their tears.

I sat up and looked wildly about. The women drew back in surprise. The people of the pit were gathered nearby. Airships drifted overhead like lost clouds. The transport was on its side close by, settling slowly over the necropolis.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“Keftu!” cried Seila. “You’re alive!”

“What happened?” I repeated. “Where are they?”

“Where are what?”

“The ships! The ones Jairus took!”

“They made off in the direction of the temple district. Look! You can see them vanishing.”

I turned toward where she pointed. No ships were visible down the street, but I could see a long shadow just slipping off a building. “I have to stop them!”

“You’re not stopping anyone right now,” said Joanna. “Look at you. You’re a mess!”

“Hand me my helmet,” I said. I struggled to my feet.

“What do you owe these people? Phylites and helots! Do you think they care what happens to you? You’re nothing to them!”

“That’s true,” I said. “I was nothing to Granny, either, and yet I tried to save her. I don’t know why myself. Hand me my helmet.”

Seila brought it to me. “Goodbye, Keftu,” she said. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“We all will,” said Joanna.

“Wait at the pyramid, then,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be back.” I set off at a sprint over the springy turf, making for the foundation-wall. The chimeras lying in pieces all over the cemetery were still flapping disgustingly. The only ones not moving had been felled by flamethrowers and fireballs.

When I reached the foundation I climbed to the top, entered a building, and dashed up the stairs to the roof. From there I went bounding from rooftop to rooftop in pursuit of the ships. They had already cleared the wall of the Cheiropt; the hoplites had all been incinerated, but at the sacrifice of one ship, the
Arrow
, which lay in the street, a flaming wreck.

The other two were only a few blocks from the rift when I reached them. I threw myself into empty space over the nearest and landed on its envelope. I rent it as I’d seen the chimeras tear through the transport’s balloon, releasing a small tempest. When the envelope sagged I leaped to the next and treated it as the first. I rode it to the street. As it touched down I leaped to the pavement, dashed another block or two ahead, and turned, standing between the Misfit and the rift.

The Misfit’s men poured out as their ships slowly settled. Jairus strode forward through the ranks, setting them in order. Soon his small army stood in formation, serried from wall to wall of the street. There were at least a hundred men.

Deinothax was white-hot and smoking in my hands. My legs were spread wide. Jairus gave the signal, and his men charged.

It seemed at that moment that I had ages to wait until the tide of steel reached me. The light of the sinking sun shot slantwise down the street, and each cloud wisp, window, and mote stood out as something tragically and eternally beautiful.

The wall of warriors was a block away now. A girl with green hair was watching from a balcony, calm and serious. I looked at her, and our eyes met. She was the girl I had saved from the slug. She waved at me; I waved back.

The length of two buildings lay between me and the Misfit now. A new light flashed in Jairus’ eyes. He slowed and stopped in the middle of an intersection. His men drew to a standstill behind him, bunched up and tense, watching him with confused eyes.

A slow and growing thunder was in the air. I looked at the sky, but the sky was clear. Then the quiet was cloven by the voice of a savage horn, awful and lonely, such as might have led the Wild Hunt through the moss-forests at the dawn of time. The street seemed to pulse and vibrate under my feet. I heard a sound that was something between a squeal and a roar, and wondered why it was so familiar.

A cry of panic went up among the men. They started to divide down the middle, on either side of the intersection. But it was too late.

A score of angry behemothim thundered across the street, trampling the warriors like cockroaches. They wheeled when they saw the men and drove into their ranks, tossing them with their tusks, crushing them between their great flat teeth. I stepped aside as the beasts passed, and they went off down the street like a tornado that strikes and misses.

The air was full of wails and groans now. Three pale giants strode into view, eyeing the survivors with their great cartwheel eyes, bearing sickles in their soft gray hands. It was Arges and his two brothers. My friend raised one hand in greeting, and I returned the gesture. Then the three cyclopes set about harvesting the remainder of the Misfit’s men. It was a red harvest. The warriors were stricken almost senseless by the eyes of their foes, and hewed one another down in their desperation to escape.

Only Jairus remained unaffected by the cyclopes’ coming. He saw the greeting I exchanged with Arges. “So,” he said, “it was true what my men told me about your escape that night. We keep underestimating you. Well, it takes only one man to do what I set out to do. Out of my way!” And he ran at me with flaming eyes.

I thrust Deinothax still smoking into its sheath and hurtled toward the Misfit, head down. The move caught him off guard, and I was within his circle of defense almost before he knew it. I grappled with him like a wild thing, pounding him with my fists and tearing at him with my fingers. He threw me off with a bellow of terror. I struck the pavement and rolled, then rocked to one side to dodge his descending longsword. Yanking it from his hands, I leaped to my feet, snapped it in half across my knee, and threw the pieces far down the street. We eyed one another.

“You fight like a beast,” said Jairus.

“I fight,” I said, “like desert vermin.” And once again I threw myself against him, pummeling him with my fists. With each blow I drove him backward a step. I began striking at his chin, and his iron-helmeted head snapped back again and again. He tripped and fell on his back, and I was on him immediately, beating his head against the pavement. The giant fell limp at last.

I rose unsteadily to my feet. The cyclopes were standing in a ring around me, stained red up to their elbows and knees. “I thought you’d never come,” I said.