The Rising (The Alchemy Wars) (36 page)

Falling through the ice wasn’t enough to shake off Daniel’s pursuers.

He churned up stones and mud when he hit bottom. It thickened the shadows beneath the snow and ice, where the meager not-quite daylight couldn’t penetrate. Soon the silt dissipated, but the murk didn’t. Daniel removed Mab’s locket from the birchwood box and inserted Samson’s pineal glass. The
turbidity gave way to a silvery blaze so bright it seemed a wonder the lake didn’t boil. But this was a cold light. Cold as Mab’s mainspring heart.

He cupped the blazing alchemical glass in his palms and crouched on the lakebed. It didn’t take long for the first pursuers to follow him into the icy waters.

Daniel opened his hands the moment they broke the surface. The light hit their crystalline eyes before their feet hit bottom. They still wore the protective plates over their keyholes. But those were immaterial, he hoped.

Mab had made the mine overseer order his mechanicals to look into the light. And then she’d forced him to issue new commands, basically transferring their obeisance from him to Mab. Could Daniel do something similar, and alter his pursuers’ metageasa aurally?

Mechanical clicks and ticks carried surprisingly well in the frigid depths. Daniel said,
You’re free, brothers. You needn’t chase me any longer. You needn’t return to Mab. She’ll never lay another geas upon you.

It didn’t work.

A flicker of light sent Longchamp’s order around the perimeter of the inner keep. In its wake came weary sighs. During a lull before the next wave of attackers hit the wall, he ordered the gunnery teams to swap out the doubled epoxy/fixative tanks for the chemists’ newest creation: an ultralow-viscosity lubricant.

The changeout took time. It meant the wall defense went to the lightning guns and steam harpoons. Which tipped New France’s hand: The defenders’ chemical stocks were running low. So the next wave of Clakkers to come sprinting over the
charred and smoking ground featured the greatest number of machines to attack en masse since the detonation. Almost a third of the remaining forces.

They bounded across the moat like an infestation of fleas, and scurried up the wall like dozens of gleaming roaches.

“METAL ON THE WALL!”

The steam cannon shot massive bolas that unfolded and twirled so quickly they appeared like translucent disks to the naked eye. They snagged two and even three Clakkers at a time, catching them in midair and sending them tumbling, tangled, to the earth or crashing into other machines. Others sent harpoons at those landing on the walls, the concussion hard enough to loosen their grips. The crackle of the lightning gun presaged bolts that jolted, shook, and even partially melted the attackers. The wall shook everywhere with the cacophonous
throom
and
crash
of combat.

Longchamp cried, “Douse the bastards!”

And then he crossed himself, fingered the blood-crusted rosary beads at his belt, and prayed once more to the Blessed Virgin.
Please, Mother Mary, your people are so weary. Please don’t let these brave morons fuck up and spill that shit all over the battlements. Because if they do, we’re all dead by day’s end.

Iridescent waves curtained over the parapets in a high-velocity waterfall. Lubricant gushed down the wall. The force of the torrent wouldn’t have been enough to budge a fidgety cat from a narrow windowsill, much less dislodge a Clakker. But the concussions from the steam and lightning weapons forced them to shift their superhuman grips. And that was enough for the lubricant to take over.

It compromised their ability to scale the inner wall. Just the tiniest bit, but enough.

Half the machines tumbled down the wall. They spun and scrabbled at the treacherously slick surface. Some
managed to reattach themselves, only to be knocked loose again by their tumbling fellows. It was a chain reaction. None of the machines at the bottom of the wall, no matter how firmly they’d affixed themselves, could retain their hold against an avalanche of alchemical boulders. Dozens of machines plunged into the chemical moat at the base of the inner wall.

Longchamp wrenched a muscle in his neck when he spun to check the heliograph stations. Those he saw reported three quick flashes:
metal in the water
. But there was no time to wait on reports from all around the perimeter.

“Fixative, NOW!”

The gunners let loose with the torrent of chemical fixative. This they fired not at the machines splashing in and climbing from the viscous moat but at the moat itself.

The miniature lake hardened in an instant. The flash reaction imprisoned Clakkers like koi under the icy cover of a winter pond. A wave of heat and the odor of sour milk washed over the battlements. Followed almost immediately by a tremendous crackling as the imprisoned mechanicals started to break free. The epoxy shortage had made it impossible to use modern chemicals in the moat. The chemists had been forced to revert to a much older, weaker formulation.

But it was enough to slow the damn machines down. The harpoons and lightning guns did the rest.

A cute ploy. But they could only use it once.

And, eventually, the tulips’ reinforcements would come.

Centuries ago, before Het Wonderjaar, a woman following an army raised no eyebrows. Camp followers were just another consequence of warfare. But now, in these days of metal infantry, women of negotiable affection found no reason to follow the hosts en route to war. So as she talked her way aboard a
wagon at the tail end of the mechanical column headed, with some speed, to Marseilles-in-the-West, Berenice gave careful thought to how she’d justify her presence. A day later and many leagues from the locks where a massive trekvaart, a tow canal, married the North River to Lake Champlain, a human commander spotted her.

He reined up, falling back until he drew even with Berenice’s wagon. The wagon was piled high with tapestries for the commanders’ tents and locked wooden crates. It was pulled by a trio of servitors, who together strained to keep pace with their fellow mechanicals trotting tirelessly along muddy, snow-churned forest roads to the shores of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

He frowned. “Who are you, and what are you doing back here?”

The insignia on his peaked cap and epaulettes marked him as a captain in the Fourteenth Irregulars out of Zwaanendael, more than seventy leagues south of New Amsterdam. Why would the tulips be pulling reinforcements from as far away as the South River watershed when, by all accounts, Marseilles already teetered on the verge of collapse? She wasn’t alone in wondering; she’d spent the ride eavesdropping on the mechanical troops. But none brought hard facts to their clickety-tickety speculations.

She trembled with an unpleasant combination of dread and spiteful pride. The captain mistook these for the usual winter misery.

“I’ve been sent by the colonial governor’s Land Grant Office,” Berenice rasped. She no longer recognized her own voice when she spoke. “I was supposed to be across the Saint Lawrence by now, along with all the other surveyors, not to mention my Goddamned equipment, but I missed my boat at Fort Orange.”

Her breath became a silver cloud wreathed through the remnants of the officer’s exhalation. Together they rode the
winter wind to disappear into a forest of yellow birch. Aside from the captain’s horse (working hard to keep pace with the tireless mechanicals) she and he were the only two creatures with visible exhalations in this fast-moving phalanx of killers.

“Traveling a bit light for a surveyor, aren’t you? Where’s your theodolite?”

“I told you, I missed my boat. So I assume my theodolite is currently standing in a farm field somewhere in the ass-end of what used to be called New France.” The bitter taste in her mouth lingered after she spat over the side of the wagon. Her tongue curled in disgust.

“Well, it’s still New France for a little while, technically,” said the captain. Hidden behind her breastbone, Berenice’s Gallic heart did a cautious pitter-pat.

“Oh? I’d heard the Frenchies’ citadel, the Needle or whatever the hell they call that obnoxious phallus, had fallen days ago.”

“They call it the Spire, and not yet. But it will once we arrive.” His gaze flickered from her face to her neck. A frown sagged the corner of his mouth. She tugged up the scarf that hid the ropy scarlet weal twined about her throat like a torque. Just thinking about it made her cough.

“Well, then, Nieuw Nederland is about to double in size. The Brasswork Throne doesn’t need to send an army of mechanicals across the border. They need to send an army of surveyors, yeah?”

He scratched his temple. “Are you certain you’re headed in the right direction? We’re headed to Marseilles-in-the-West, which is technically still a war zone.” (
Pitter pat, pitter pat
went Berenice’s heart…) “I’d think they’d have sent you to Québec. That fell weeks ago.” (… Until it froze, pinned in place like a butterfly pierced by an icicle.) Berenice shivered.

“Look, Officer. I know only two things.” She paused while the trio of mechanicals pulled the wagon over a gnarled oak
root. It landed so hard she bit her tongue. Still trembling, she mumbled, “One is that all my equipment crates were bound for Marseilles. The other is that if I’m not with those crates soon, I’m going to lose my job. If I haven’t already.”

His horse gamely hopped the root and kept pace with the wagon. Well trained, it was. He said, “We’re not a civilian taxi service. We’re a military unit.”

“Please,” said Berenice. “If I lose my job, I’ll have to go back to Vlissingen. I hate Vlissingen. Have you ever been there, sir? It’s a shithole, it is.”

The officer winced at the coarse words. “You don’t understand. We’re a military force in time of war! We could fall under attack by French partisans armed with explosives. If that happens, they’ll aim for the supply wagons.” He rapped his knuckles on the side of her wagon to emphasize his point as though she were too dim to catch his meaning.

I should fucking hope so,
thought Berenice.
By now every woman, man, and babe in New France not manning what remains of the walls of Marseilles-in-the-West ought to be waging a guerilla war against these bison-fuckers.

“If it’s a choice between getting blown to bits and returning to Vlissingen, I’ll take my chances, thanks all the same.” He hesitated; she could see the uncertainty tugging at him. She touched her scarf again as if doing so unconsciously. A subtle prod to his own subconscious, urging speculative interpretation of her bruises. Perhaps she ran from a dangerous husband?

“Please,” she said. “I can’t go back.”

“Very well.” He rolled his eyes. “Though it’s in my power to have you bodily removed, I won’t. But I’ll change my mind the instant I decide you’re in danger, or that you’re interfering.”

Berenice laughed. If it sounded authentic, it surely also carried a hint of desperation. Then she rose to her knees to peer over the crates and the Clakkers pulling the wagon. Pale winter
sunlight gleamed on alchemical brass marching three abreast almost as far down the forest road as she could see.

“Sir, by my estimate you’ve got over a hundred mechanicals at your beck and call. Now, what on earth could a poor woman like me possibly do to interfere with your grand plans?”

He touched two fingers to the brim of his cap. “Good day, miss. I hope you find your equipment and retain your employment. Do remember what I said.” Then he clicked to his horse. It launched into a tired trot.

To his retreating back, she called, “Thank you, sir! And don’t worry. Once we’ve landed on the Île de Vilmenon, you’ll never see me again!”

Or so I most sincerely hope.