Into the Storm (37 page)

His platoon was still fighting, and more Protectorate were sure to converge on the noise. Headhunter and the Reckoner were pounding the daylights out of each other. A pipe was split open and fire came belching out. A purple liquid splattered across both of the warjacks and shimmered with arcane energy as it caught fire. A chain of small explosions shook the main floor of the Great Dome. It felt as if the whole place was about to collapse in on itself.

Madigan took another halting step forward. “In the name of the crown, I hereby arrest you for high treason. Surrender your arms and stand down. Resist and I’ll kill you.”

The old alchemist knew he was no match for Madigan in a fight. The hand cannon was dropped on the metal floor. “I yield.”

Madigan looked down at the pistol lying on the grate between them. Then he looked back up and smiled, showing bloody teeth. “Nobody wants you alive, Culpin . . .”

“Wha—”

Madigan stepped close enough to put his gauntlets around the old man’s neck and squeeze. Eyes bulging, Culpin clawed futilely at the gauntlets. “Those are the exact words I told Earl Hartcliff all those years ago. At least he had the guts to fight for what he believed in,” Madigan said as he dragged the struggling man to the broken edge of the platform. He saw a spreading puddle of the flammable purple ooze far below, seeping up through the grates.

He released his grip a bit, and Culpin gasped for breath. “Let me live. I have information! Valuable information!” He looked down at the bubbling alchemical mix. “Let me live. I beg you. Have mercy.”

“You long for a return to Vinter’s rule?” Madigan snarled. “Then receive his brand of mercy.” And he hurled Culpin over the side.

Culpin’s scream cut off sharply when he landed on a metal catwalk several floors down. Madigan leaned over to watch. The fall hadn’t killed him, but it had obviously shattered bones. He lay there, groaning, and the groan turned into a long sob. Then the flooding mixture reached him, and he must have realized what it was. Culpin splashed and wailed, thrashing in the rising alchemical soup. A rainbow sheen had formed across the surface of the purple ooze, and Culpin desperately tried to claw his way out of it, but it was stuck to his skin and had seeped through his clothes.

Sparks and burning debris fell into the mix, and the surface ignited. The fire spread rapidly, hissing and sputtering. Culpin was engulfed in licking flames, his body consumed by the fruits of his mind. The base of the Great Dome turned into a sea of fire.

Madigan stumbled for the stairs, weak with blood loss. He felt a coldness inside his chest. His life was drizzling out through his wounds. He did not remember falling, but he found himself lying facedown on the floor. There was nothing left to give, no final reserve of strength, just the blessed darkness of unconsciousness, and then the fire would take him. It was a fitting end.

I hope the men got out. Morrow preserve them. This kingdom needs good men.

Noxious smoke surrounded him. Somebody coughed. Boots struck the stairs. “Madigan!” he heard. Hands latched onto the straps of his armor and pulled. “Pangborn! Up here.”

He grimaced in pain as he was lifted. Something was tearing inside. “Rains?” Madigan gasped. “I ordered you to flee.”

“Madigan’s Malcontents are notoriously bad at following orders, sir.” Rains hoisted him up and began dragging him down the stairs. “Now hold on.”

The Great Dome was collapsing all around them.

Cleasby had saved the palace district, but he’d doomed this place. Back pressure had built up in the big pipes, and they were bulging dangerously. Rivets popped and shot out like bullets. Thornbury had found a ladder to the next level up and already started climbing. “Acosta! We’ve got to go.”

The Ordsman was circling the dangerous Madra Zevrhan. “I’ll be along.” They’d clashed repeatedly, with the much bigger and stronger Zevrhan chasing Acosta around the room. But Acosta was far too quick and had used their complex environment to his advantage, constantly keeping machinery between himself and the flaming swords. “I still have more to learn.”

“Whatever the lesson, you’ll get to analyze it in Urcaen if you don’t hurry, because this whole place is about to explode,” Cleasby warned as he began climbing the ladder. “Wrap it up!”

Acosta sighed. “Very well.”

“Your skills are great, but they will not be enough to overcome mine, child of murder,” Zevrhan said to Acosta. He circled, keeping one flaming sword between them defensively and the other low at his side, ready to disembowel at the first careless mistake. “My power comes from Menoth.”

“That is your mistake, relying on another for strength.” Acosta stepped a few feet to the side, and shifted his grip on the pair of storm glaives. “My power is my own.”

Zevrhan roared as he struck, lunging forward, driving the tip of his blade at Acosta’s chest. He dodged at the last possible instant, raising a glaive to smoothly deflect the flaming sword—so fluidly it was almost as if Acosta were guiding his opponent’s sword himself. Too late, the Protectorate warrior realized his mistake. The flaming sword was guided directly into a bulging pipe and pierced the metal. Acosta stepped back as a pressurized jet shot from the hole. It ignited as it rolled down Zevrhan’s flaming blade, a rolling ball of liquid death, and the giant was almost instantly covered in sticky, consuming doom. He went spinning away, thrashing and beating his hands at his own body.

Acosta walked toward the ladder, muttering. “Menoth should have taught him how to pay better attention.”

Climbing a ladder for several stories while wearing heavy armor was not for the weak, and Cleasby was thankful for all the hours Madigan had worked them like dogs. It didn’t help that something was shaking the ladder. With aching limbs, Cleasby heaved himself onto the main level.

Headhunter and a Protectorate Reckoner were throwing each other through vital supports, and every impact made the whole building sway dangerously.

Private Langston waved his arms overhead, getting their attention. A new, warjack-sized exit had been made for them. The wounded had been gathered, and it was almost all of the platoon. He quickly counted, noting they were a few bodies short, but he’d seen Debney and Newman killed for certain earlier. Allsop was somehow still breathing even with a hole in his neck. Cleasby caught sight of Pangborn running through the flames, carrying the limp form of another Storm Knight in his arms.
Madigan!
Rains appeared right behind him, slowing just enough to blast apart a zealot.

“That’s everybody. Move out!”

They rushed through the hole, nearly everyone wounded and only half moving under their own power. They were in the middle of thousands of Protectorate, but the fire, explosions, and smoke provided some cover. Half a block away, a wagon team was thrashing and tearing at their ropes, trying to get away from the crumbling dome.

“Seize that wagon,” Cleasby ordered. “Get the wounded in back.”

There was a high-pitched whine. It came from the south, growing steadily louder. “Incoming!” Rains shouted. An artillery shell struck just to the north of the Great Dome.

Cleasby looked to the river and saw a flash. He heard the
boom
a second later. It was a Cygnaran warship. “The navy’s bombarding the Great Dome.”
Well, at least Commander Bradher believed my message
 . . . That would have been a small comfort, if it hadn’t been too late to stop Culpin. The solution was just as liable to kill all the Malcontents as any Protectorate, and worst of all, the first cannonball that hit one of the big tanks was going to blow this whole neighborhood apart.

Thornbury had gotten to the horses. When he cut the legs out from under one of the Menites guarding them, the other ran for his life. Their aristocrat slashed through the ropes tying the team to a fence, grabbed hold of the reins, and began pulling the terrified animals along. A cannonball landed less than a hundred yards away, and the horses rose and kicked, but Thornbury held on and kept them from bolting. Luckily they were yoked together and appeared to be mostly deaf. They had probably spent the war hauling artillery.

Dirt and chunks of rock were falling from the sky as more cannonballs landed. Wounded Storm Knights were shoved onto the bed of the wagon. Langston got in the seat and took up the reins. “Move!” Cleasby shouted. Only half of the platoon were onboard, but the rest would have to run for it. It wouldn’t take the navy long to zero in on the dome, and when one of the main tanks of Culpin’s lethal concoction was hit . . . Thornbury got out of the way, and Langston cracked the whip—not that it mattered, as the team was desperate to get away from the fire.

Cleasby ran alongside the wagon. A dazed Temple Flameguard stumbled into their path, but the horses just crunched him underfoot and the wagon wheels finished the job. Pangborn gave a sharp whistle, trying to signal for Headhunter to follow them, but he doubted their Stormclad would hear it.

“Faster!” Cleasby shouted. “It’s going to blow!”

They passed surprised Protectorate troops who were busy taking cover from what they thought was an ordinary naval bombardment. They had no reason to expect to see a wagonload of bedraggled Storm Knights come tearing down the main avenue. A cannonball struck the Great Dome. A huge section of the curved roof collapsed in on itself. A pillar of fire shot into the night sky. The navy had found their target . . .

A series of flashes lit up the haze-covered river. The booms came a split second later, and then cannonballs were falling like rain. Holes appeared all across the top of the Great Public Works.

One of the big holding tanks was hit.

The whole of the world seemed to fly to pieces as the shockwave washed over them. The team of horses came apart and the wagon crashed, its rear rising as the front plowed into the dirt, and then the whole thing flipped over, flinging wounded Storm Knights like leaves on the hot wind.

The world stopped spinning long enough for Cleasby to realize the unfocused light in front of his face was the meager sunrise coming through his visor. He raised one shaking hand and pushed up the visor so he could see. The sky was filled with black smoke, but the first weak bits of orange daylight were poking over the horizon. He was covered in bits of rocks, splintered boards, and shards of glass, but it all fell off as struggled to his feet. He looked back and saw a smoking hole where the Great Dome of Caspia had once stood.

Their stolen wagon was on its side, bodies lying all around it. Some were moving. Most were not. He limped toward them. Men were groaning, coughing. A horse was crying. Another one was loose and running in circles.

Their wounded had been thrown from the overturned wagon. He had no idea what state any of them were in. They were deep behind enemy lines, surrounded by Protectorate forces. Cleasby didn’t know what to do.

The others began to stir. It was almost like the heat and pressure of the explosion had blown out their consciousness like a candle, but it was coming back now. Langston had been thrown from the seat and was cursing as he realized his landing had broken his leg. Watersford had been hit with a piece of flying pipe, and it had crushed his helmet so badly that Cleasby didn’t need to check to know he was dead. But he couldn’t find the one he needed to find, the one man who would know what to do, because he
always
knew what to do.

“Madigan?” Cleasby shouted. “Where’s Madigan?”

“He’s over here,” Acosta said.

Cleasby limped over to the other side of the wagon. Madigan was lying on his back. The straps of his armor had been cut away and his breast plate removed. Acosta moved aside, and Cleasby saw that Madigan had a ghastly laceration deep on one side of his abdomen and a large-caliber bullet hole on the other. The lieutenant was ghostly pale, his skin a weak grey. Acosta gave him a sad look and shook his head in the negative.