Sky Song: Overture (14 page)

XIX. Dawn Comes

T
he battle raged in the distance. Every second I spent waiting beneath that carriage made me feel like more of a coward. I heard canon fire and screeching babes that would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. The rational part of my mind knew I had to wait here for Dirk so I could warn him of the ambush in the library, but the more I stared at the bodies of Fitz and our driver, the more I wanted to head in there and take vengeance myself.

A mortar round landed nearby and smashed the awning of a bakery. The horses spooked and bolted, pulling the carriage as they fled. I was exposed. A Duskman saw me lying there, but he must been influenced by all of Fitz’s blood on me, for he didn’t see me as a threat until after I had already fired Millicent three times into his chest. I rolled behind a stoop and reloaded the revolver.

The library doors burst open and some men came running out, raising lanterns and inspecting the scene. There were three men. I took aim from the shadows and fired shots at each. I felled two of them, but the third I missed entirely. I fled down an alley. His footfalls grew louder as he gained on me.

“Halt!” he shouted.

I went around the bend and drew the dagger from my boot. As he came around I tried stabbing him in the gut, but he sidestepped me and fired off his pocket automatic. He was young, had clearly never discharged his weapon outside of training. The weapon’s recoil knocked his wrist back and bullets sprayed the building behind me, breaking off small clouds of cement debris. When the clip was empty, he drew his short sword and tackled me. We grappled on the hard ground. I tried to wrestle his sword’s tip away from my throat, but it was a losing battle. I closed my eyes and fought with all the energy I had left, which wasn’t enough. He was too strong.

The Duskman drooled down my shoulder and his body went limp. I opened my eyes and saw a dark figure standing over us. It was Baker. He yanked his dagger from out the man’s back and wiped it clean on his pant leg. He helped me to stand up, but my legs shook so fiercely I had to lean against the brick wall. “You gave me a scare,” I said. “I feared the worst.”

“Lost control of my reserve, but I sorted it out.”

“We’ve been betrayed. They killed Fitz.”

Baker flinched, knitting his brow as he closed his eyes. He took the Duskman’s pocket automatic and reloaded the clip. “Let’s push on,” he said. “I need to kill somebody.”

“Stay close.” I led him back through the alley. I knew he wanted vengeance as badly as I did, but we could not take the library without help.

As we came out onto the street, I realized we wouldn’t have to. A barrage of footsteps sounded nearby as a mob approached. Dirk was leading the front lines. The dense rows of men resembled an army of the dead, for all were war-painted, their tunics and yellow bandanas covered in blood.

“Captain!” I cried, running towards him. “An ambush lies in wait in the library!”

Dirk signaled for one of his units to follow him and for the others to begin the onslaught of the palace. Fifty men advanced towards the castle gate and climbed the stone. Gunfire rained down upon them, but where one man fell, another would soon take up his place.

“Ned!” Dirk shouted. “Toss a boom stick in there.” He pointed at the library.

Ned lit a stick of dynamite and sent it twirling into the open window.

The Blue Dusk cried out within. The doors flung open and a thick cloud of white smoke came rushing out. A couple uniforms tried to flee, only to meet our swords as we advanced. I held my breath and ran in, Rotters at my side. A cloud imbued the library and buried the tall bookshelves in mist. Coughing fits hindered the Duskmen. They could hardly fight back as we gutted them. We matched Dirk’s pace as he dashed upstairs. The upper level was only mildly clouded, the shelves of books unaffected by the explosion. Dirk touched a marble bust and one of the bookshelves spun, revealing a secret passage that descended underground. Our footsteps echoed on stone as we traversed the long dark hall. The men used matches to light torches, passing one up for Dirk as he led the charge.

“There is a chance Maive hid in this tunnel,” said Dirk.

I didn’t want to tell him that it wasn’t likely, so I kept my mouth shut. At the end of the tunnel, we came up some stairs and reached an opening and what appeared to be the back of an armoire with light peeking out beneath it. It was solid wood, but Baker and Saul helped Dirk to topple it easily. We came out into the king’s suite, a room that had fallen into disuse. The furniture was covered in white sheets, and the grand mirrors adorning the walls were grey with dust and age.

“Maive?” whispered Dirk. “Are you in here?” He peered under the bed. He ripped the sheets off the furniture and frantically searched every inch of the room. The witch was not there.

“Captain,” I said.

Dirk offered an admission of understanding. “Yes. Onward. We’ll advance to the war room. That’s where we’ll likely find General Rex.”

“Do you know where it is?”

He smirked. “Of course I do. I grew up here. West wing, lower level.”

We moved on, entering a regal hallway. A Duskman saw us and started to run, but Dirk grabbed him and ran his sword across the man’s throat. These men weren’t armed, which suggested that even if Lord Terrence had given up my landing point, he might not have known about the hydrogen airship or our plan to take an arterial tunnel into the heart of the castle. It made sense that Maive would provide him the minimal amount of information in case he was ever compromised. He knew about the green stagecoach that was to bring a rebel hero to the library at a specific time, and that was all. This boded well for Maive. If Rex didn’t have her knowledge, she might not have been captured.

We continued on foot, slashing down anyone we met on our way through the palace. Some of them shouted, “Breach!” but did not manage to alert their allies before we cut them down.

A door flew open as a behemoth Duskman burst into the corridor, firing a mini-gun. He stood almost seven feet tall, his body solid with muscle. I leapt behind a stone column. Saul jumped in front of Dirk, acting as a human shield for his prince. He died honorably. The bullet spray killed five more of our men, including Ned and the only medic we had with us.

Blood mist went everywhere, painting our faces red. I whipped around the other side of the column and came up behind the brute, driving my dagger between his ribs. I usually struck the heart with this attack, but I had not accounted for the man’s size. He swung around to hit me and I ducked.

Baker came out of cover. He fired his filched automatic into the man’s shoulder. I finished the brute with Millicent, landing a shot between his eyes. When he fell dead, I dived for that fine weapon of his.

The mini-gun had a temperature gauge and a ribbon of ammunition that hung down like a bicycle chain. Lifting it took all my strength, but I propped it up against my hip and aimed low down the hall.

Duskmen exploded out of the war room, wielding ornamental rapiers. I squeezed hard on the trigger. The six barrels spun like a beast inhaling. Then a noise like a hundred rattlesnakes on Skye shredded the air. The gun felt like it might fly right out of my grasp. An onslaught of bullets burst forth, decimating the officers. The corridor filled with quivering gore and the Blue Dusk uniforms turned violet as men collapsed into a heap. The wand on the temperature gauge went all the way into the red until the glass shattered. The metal scalded my hands and I dropped the gun, cracking the marble floor. Blue Dusk assistance arrived with pocket automatics.

“Get down!” Baker shouted. Our men ducked behind columns and used the mound of dead as a barricade whenever they fired at the opposition. The stench of gunpowder, blood and excrement filled the air. Just when I thought that vile scent couldn’t be worse, it would amplify as more shots fired and more men went down.

“Stand down! I have your precious witch, Derek!” bellowed a voice from within the war room, deep and gravelly. Maive’s muffled cry rang out.

Dirk ran ahead, emitting a desperate wail.

“Captain! Don’t!” I chased after him. Someone needed to protect the true king of Elsace. Our brothers threw down cover fire as Dirk and I stormed the war room.

Rex had retreated into a deeper station. Dirk rushed the inner haven, kicking open the double doors. General Rex sat behind an ivory desk with Maive on his lap. She was muted by an iron apparatus affixed to her jaw and her arms were wrapped in bandages. Her hands had been amputated.

Rex held his rifle aimed at the door and shot Dirk in the stomach.

“Captain!” I cried, clasping him in my arms. His legs twitched beneath him and we crumbled to the floor together. Everything slowed. My heartbeat pounded in my ears.

General Rex lifted his sword from off the desk—that same curved sword with the sapphire tears along the hilt—and in one swift movement, cut open Maive’s throat. Her blood trickled down the hilt, down the sapphires and down around his pale fingers. She trembled against the iron jaw brace and her eyes went wide. Rex discarded her to the floor, pointing his rifle at me now. Maive had known the risks of spying on the Blue Dusk. I knew this, and yet seeing her body so mistreated was too much for me.

“Maive!” Dirk cried, shaking.

“If I’d known you would make it so easy, I’d have killed her sooner,” said Rex, coming towards us. “Never trust a witch, and if you realize one is working against you, be sure to bind and gag her to prevent her casting. I may have taken it to the extreme, but I am a careful man, even when I snuff out causes that are damned from the start.”

He stuck the tip of his rifle flat against the side of my head. I swallowed my sick and readied for death, berating myself for my every mistake I’d made along the way.

“You are the one who is damned,” I whispered, “Regardless of how this battle ends, your Blue Dusk will fall. We still have the princess. The people will never lose hope so long as she lives!”

Rex pressed his rifle tip harder against my skull. “You think I’m afraid of some little girl? I will find her and when I do, I will have her drawn and quartered in the old square.”

All these years yearning for justice, I was to be shot down by the demon who set me on my course in the first place. I had failed my parents, my king and my country. I mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” just before Rex pulled the trigger.

His gun jammed. The instant I heard that click in my ear, I grabbed the shaft and pulled him down to the floor. I aimed Millicent at his head and shrieked, already imagining the act of blowing out his brains. A savage force consumed my soul. I wanted so desperately to pull the trigger and be done with him, but I knew I could not. Not yet. For to save my captain’s life, we had to move our reinforcements and medics into the castle at once.

“Tell your men to surrender!” I said, cocking the revolver.

Rex nodded. “Stand down!” he roared.

The Rotters were able to enter the command post. I issued the next order to them. “Take Rex to the gates and complete the surrender! Get a medic in here as soon as possible! That’s the priority! If Rex tries anything, shoot his cock off.”

Our boys marched Rex out at gunpoint, announcing that the Blue Dusk was surrendering. The surrender had a ripple effect and I could hear swords and guns dropping throughout the hall.

“No, Clikk, how could you?” growled Dirk. I held him, compressing his wound with his Rotter bandana. The red rising sun expanded like a supernova and his blood soaked my knees. “How could you let him live?” he slurred.

“I’m saving you.”

“He killed Maive.”

“You think I didn’t want vengeance? Rex murdered my parents. I’ve spent the last decade wanting to kill him, but instead I’m saving you. Your life isn’t your own anymore. You see that, don’t you? You’re to be our king.”

Dirk seemed to understand me, or at least, was too weak to argue. He shuddered and nestled close, tucking his chin. “You’ll take care of Molly for me, won’t you?”

“You’re going to live.”

He coughed. “Dammit, Clikk, just promise me.”

“I will,” I said. “You know I will.”

“I need to tell you…”

“Shh, save your strength.”

“If I’m… gonna die,” he sucked up a deep breath and laughed off the pain, “I want to impart some wisdom ‘fore I go.”

“Shh.”

“I loved her.” His extremities trembled and his muscles clenched. “I never told her more than once or twice. Not sure why it’s always been so hard for me.” He clutched my sleeve, his face turning white. “I never had the gift of foresight. I thought we had time, thought…someday I would awaken a better man, and everything would settle, but that isn’t how it works, Clikk. You have to seize the day…” He passed out. I felt for his vitals and detected a faint pulse, growing fainter. I screamed medic until my throat burned.

Men arrived with a surgeon. They carried Dirk into the war room, cleared off the war table and laid him down.

“You, kindle a fire. The rest of you, leave. I need the room,” the surgeon said. He did not waste a second before digging his steel tongs into Dirk’s flesh.

I went out into the hall, hardly able to see through my tears. I lamented that moment I let my captain—my prince—rush the war room in a fit of passion. This fight would be a waste if he didn’t survive. Without Dirk, whom would we follow? Molly was stronger now than ever before, but she did not have the life experience to be a great leader like Dirk. Some corrupt advisor could easily manipulate her and Elsace would fall back into chaos.