Chapter 38 – The Price of Caring

“Should we really be walking towards the giant explosions?” Frost asked, reluctantly following behind Linton.

“We can’t let the army collapse,” Linton said. He hurried in the direction of the frequent artillery strikes just a few streets ahead. “We won’t make it into the Arcanex on our own.”

“I actually wasn’t planning on dying today.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll stay at a safe distance.”

The ground shuddered beneath them as they drew closer. The remains of the revolutionary army came into view, a pitiful, ragged force of a few hundred huddled beneath a faltering patchwork of wards. Most of the buildings surrounding them had been reduced to rubble by the flagship’s merciless artillery. Countless corpses surrounded the remaining revolutionaries.

Linton scanned over their auras, finding only terror and despair. Imwe sheltered her subjects as best she could, towering above them as she wove quick, complex hand signs to force the wards back into a cohesive mass. Yet, even the Goddess of Knowledge drooped under the oppressive weight of the Aurora’s cannon shells which struck the shield like clockwork, causing her to flinch each time.

A shell struck not ten meters from Linton and Frost, forcing Linton to duck down and cover his face as they were showered with rubble and debris. He stood back up once the dust settled and brushed off his coat.

“They’re going to break,” he said.

“These people are going to get blown to bits if they try to run,” Frost said. “If they stay, well…” He glanced up at the flagship. “They’re gonna get blown to bits.”

“Not if I can give Imwe some time. I can still save this.”

Maybe, Linton thought. Codes, can I really do this?

Linton hesitated as more shells struck the crumbling army. Was this really the right thing to do? He was almost certain that his mind could not withstand the spell he was about to cast. If he left the revolutionaries to die, perhaps there was still some way he could sneak inside the Arcanex and assassinate Couldess. If he died here, everything he had done would be for nothing.

I can’t save these people. They’re already lost. I’m better off focusing on my objective.

A few revolutionaries ran out from under their shield in a lull between bombardments. They didn’t get far before a string of shells came down, reducing them to dismembered body parts in dazzling flashes of booming light.

Linton caught his hands shaking and balled them into fists.

No. That’s not what Aeva would do.

The Concord deserves a better class of hero.

“Okay…” Linton exhaled sharply. He braced himself and held out his hands. “Frost, get ready to catch me.”

Frost gave him a weird look. “Uh…”

“Can I trust you to catch me if I fall?”

“I mean, sure, yeah.”

Linton nodded. “Good.”

He extended his mind, reaching out to all the revolutionaries in the ruined square. There was no way he would get to all of them, but he connected with as many as he was able, dozens upon dozens of sentient consciousnesses crammed inside his own.

“Forovri Bringa,” Linton said. He opened his emotions to them, took in their thoughts and feelings, allowed them to absorb into himself.

He let out a cry of agony as he was wracked with phantom pain. The suffering of all those people compounded on top of each other. They had lost friends. Children. Family. They wept, hurt, despaired.

He felt their pain as his own. Many of them were dying. Some died even as he observed them, areas of his mind going black. They drifted away, numb and cold, and there was nothing he could do to save them.

Linton doubled over and vomited, his stomach in knots. Frost propped him up and kept him from falling.

“It hurts… so much…” Linton forced out.

Tears made streaks down his face. The bark couldn’t ease this. Nothing could. Just when he thought that it had peaked, that it couldn’t possibly hurt any more, more pressure was placed on him, threatening to crack his skull from the inside.

Linton’s breathing quickened, growing hysterical. Frost tried to set him down by the side of the road, but Linton pushed him away. He was too close. Everything was too close. He couldn’t get air. He couldn’t breathe.

“The bluebird, uh… fuck!” Linton cried, failing to recall his chant. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I have to let go.”

“Boss, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I think you’d better listen to yourself,” Frost said. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Another shell hit the wards above the revolutionaries, cracking their tenuous protection even further. Their panic spiked, and Linton struggled to stay conscious as his vision tunneled and he lost sensation in his hands and feet. He bit down on his cheek, drawing blood, and went down on one knee.

Then, a swathe of the revolutionaries vanished all at once, disappearing from beneath the shield.

Imwe’s doing.

Yes, that’s it, Linton thought. If I can just hold them in place a little longer…

Imwe began to teleport sections of her army out of the square, but they disappeared only in small groups. The shield wasn’t looking good, and a lot of people were looking for another way out, whipped into a panicked frenzy.

Linton took several deep, shaky breaths to compose himself. He fought through the pain.

“I have to do more,” he mumbled.

Stay and fight. Don’t run. Be brave. He projected the thought to every mind he was connected to, spoke a word of power to introduce a light soothing effect. Even with the inauspicious scale of the second spell, when copied across dozens of recipients it cost a staggering amount of anima.

It had its intended effect. The revolutionaries held firm, and Imwe whisked them away group by group. With each passing second, more people were saved.

But the pain was unbearable, and his anima was running out, only a low simmer left inside him. Linton ended the effects of both of his spells, unable to keep them up any longer. He fell backward, coughing and panting, and wiped bile from his chin with a sleeve.

Imwe had teleported perhaps half of her force when a shell pierced the cracked wards, striking the earth in the midst of the remaining fighters. Dozens of lives were snuffed out in an instant. Imwe stumbled, her focus lost for just a second.

While she was distracted, the wards flickered and split apart. The next several shells tore the survivors to pieces. Men and women screamed, running for their lives before they were inevitably caught in the explosions.

Imwe was engulfed in bright light. Her scream carried across the whole square.

The artillery fire tapered off as the Aurora’s canons turned elsewhere. Only shredded corpses remained in the square. There was no sign of Imwe apart from a smattering of bloody feathers.

Linton stood back up with a heavy sigh. “That’s the price of caring, Frost.”

“The bird lady,” Frost said. “Is she…?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to kill a god, but…” Linton left the sordid affair behind him and headed for the Arcanex. “Come on. We have a job to do.”

You saved some of them, he told himself. That’s better than no one.

It didn’t do anything for the hard knot in his stomach, or the lingering screams that echoed in his head.

***

The battle for Northmark was coming to a head. Thousands of revolutionaries, both survivors of the previous massacre and groups independent of Imwe’s army, had gathered around the walls of the Arcanex. They threw improvised firebombs over the edge and heaved sacks of flour and potatoes onto the edge of the wall to overload the destructive enchantments worked into the stone.

The flagship had scrambled fighter ships that were descending to take care of the revolutionaries, while the larger vessel turned its guns to other parts of the city, presumably unwilling to risk friendly fire in attempting to root out the revolutionaries. The fighters opened fire, tearing into the crowds.

The complex inside the walls surrounding the Arcanex crawled with truthers, as well as armored, four-legged vehicles equipped with light artillery. Scuttlers.

Linton and Frost watched from the top window of a four-story apartment building. The lubbard aimed his shotgun through a window and propped it up on the windowsill.

“Can I shoot ’em, boss?” he asked. “These guys aren’t fighting fair.”

“Do it,” Linton said. He counted up the fighter ships hovering over the Arcanex. Four in total. “If we take those out and Aeva brings down the Aurora, this revolution might still have a shot.”

Frost fired a volley with a bout of gleeful laughter. The red-hot blades shot out in a wide arc with a deep boom, and several of them struck the side of one ship. They ate through the hull. One of the engines combusted in a plume of black smoke, causing the ship to fall into an uncontrollable spin. It crashed in the Arcanex’s courtyard, crushing a handful of truthers and collapsing a scuttler.

Linton strained every fiber of his mind. He created illusory copies of Frost in the windows of the four nearest buildings to the left, while doing his best to erase the real Frost’s presence.

A pair of the ships spun around. They quickly identified and opened fire on the decoy buildings, peppering the facades with holes.

“Make this quick,” Linton said. “Can’t let them pin us down. We don’t want to catch that kind of fire.”

Frost didn’t respond, his face a mask of concentration as he reloaded his weapon and aimed it once more. Another trigger pull, another fan of swords, another ship hurtling out of the sky.

It collided with its counterpart and they both crashed to the ground, drawing a few uncertain cheers from the revolutionaries below, who were still on the verge of breaking.

“You got much ammo left in that thing?” Linton asked.

Frost pulled the shotgun onto his knee and started jamming scrap into it. “Nope. Got enough anima for one more shot.”

The final fighter ship rounded on their position, hovering closer. That last shot must have given them away.

Linton didn’t bother putting up a shield. If they got in that thing’s line of fire, no amount of hardlight was going to stop it.

“Hurry up,” Linton said.

“Shh,” Frost hissed. He finished reloading and rested the gun against his shoulder.

The ship opened fire. Bullets tore through cheap drywall and creaky flooring, filling the room with flying debris.

Linton ran forward to shove Frost to the ground.

The lubbard fired the shotgun a second before Linton leapt on top of him and got them both on the floor. An explosion sounded and the gunfire cut out.

“I think you did it, you mad bastard,” Linton said.

“Of course I did,” Frost said with a self-satisfied grin. “My inventions never fail, half the time.”

The building shook. A wing tore through the floor, forcing them to scramble out of the way, and the walls began to tilt and collapse in on themselves.

“The ship crashed into the fucking building!” Linton shouted.

Linton crawled back onto Frost and threw up wards around them, compounding the layers as tightly as he could make them. He didn’t worry about the anima cost—they’d both be crushed if he didn’t act.

The world seemed to flip as the building doubled over, throwing them into the air. They landed hard. The ceiling fell down on top of them.

Linton screwed his eyes shut, forced to listen to the sounds of cracking hardlight and falling debris.

Eventually, everything went silent. He didn’t dare check, but he couldn’t feel anything impaling him. Most importantly, he felt distinctly alive.

Linton opened his eyes.

A single layer of hardlight remained around them. They were both surrounded by a sea of plaster, bricks, and wooden debris.

Linton let the ward expire. Frost lay on top of him. They were pressed uncomfortably close together.

“That was a trip,” the lubbard said.

“Got that right.” Linton pushed Frost off him and struggled to stand, kicking off piles of debris.

“No time to rest, boys,” a red-haired woman said, walking past them. Cat glanced back, a dark look in her eyes. “We’ve got a minister to kill.”

The skies were darkened by heavy clouds, webbed by lightning.

***

Tess watched her father pace throughout his office, on his third tumbler of whiskey. She sat in a chair, hands folded primly in her lap. She didn’t want to look at the knife she held between them.

“How is it going out there?” Tess asked, knowing her father would keep mental tabs on his most important pieces.

“Just fine, sweetie,” Septum said, biting off his words. “Whittler just arrived with the cavalry. It’s all cleanup from here.”

A lie. He was worried. She could tell by the tension on his lips.

“They’re coming here, aren’t they?” she asked.

Septum stopped. He slowly turned, downed another tumbler. “Most likely.” He took a step towards her, placing the empty glass on his desk. “Don’t worry, though. I’d never go back on my word. You’re safe with me.”

Tess nodded. “Dad, could I head outside real quick? I need some air.”

“Absolutely not,” Septum said firmly. “You’re not leaving this room until it’s safe.”

“Please? Look, I need to…” She bit her lip. “I need to puke. Just let me go to the bathroom.”

Septum hesitated. Eventually, he relented. “Fine. Just be quick. Don’t wander. My bodyguards will accompany you.”

Tess wanted to protest but decided against it. Better not to push her luck. She hurried out of the office and into the elevator at the end of the hall, the two mage bodyguards closing up behind her.

She still had one thing left to do in order to make her betrayal complete.

***

Aeva balled lightning into her open, outstretched palms with sheer force of will, compressing more and more energy as it streamed from the skies. Unadulterated power rested on her shoulders.

It was too much. Her hands burned. Her bones rattled. Her teeth chattered.

No. I need more.

The people of this city were not her own. She had not grown up in their midst, wasn’t the same as them. And yet, this city had taught her more about herself than her tribe elders ever had, than Gjurin’s own teachings, even.

It could not be lost to tyranny, as her own home had been.

The heavens howled. Clouds formed a churning vortex, funneled downward with herself as the center.

The Flagship Aurora continued to bombard its own citizens, having already destroyed the revolutionary army.

More.

A pillar of pure lightning shot down out of the vortex, hitting her and enveloping her entire body in light and fire and pain.

More!

She screamed and threw her arms up, hands facing forward.

“Draegir!” she shouted.

All sound disappeared in an instant. Her world narrowed to a single line, a beam of pure energy. Her scream was silent, her pain muted, for that one instant.

The beam tore into the flagship, cutting across the hull and passing out the other side. Explosions rocked the underbelly of the massive ship, growing in volume and frequency as the hull was torn open from within and without.

The beam cut off, and sound returned as Aeva’s scream tapered into a low groan. Numb, she fell to her knees on the rooftop, smoke rising from her body.

The flagship was losing ground, desperately attempting to steer away as it fell closer to the city skyline. Its guns went silent, and its many thrusters sputtered as it fought to retain altitude.

Aeva managed a smile.

I did it.

She fell to the side, completely spent. The Crown rolled off her head.

***

The revolutionaries broke through the wall using explosives salvaged from the downed fighter ships, blowing holes large enough for hundreds to stream inside. The truthers opened fire on them without mercy. But the people were fed up with fleeing. They stepped over their fallen comrades and continued the assault, picking up whatever weapons they could find to use against the MOW.

Linton used the distraction to his advantage, moving around to the opposite side of the complex. Cat shot over the wall with a Knuph rune. Linton created a hardlight staircase for Frost and himself along the outside of the wall, chewing a piece of bark as he ascended the stairs and chasing it with his last nim potion.

They jumped down on the other side and found that the truthers were so occupied with the revolutionaries that they took no notice of their presence.

A deafening boom echoed all around and shook the earth, followed by a flash that lit up the heavens. The flagship teetered in the sky, run through by a massive discharge of energy.

She did her job. Time for us to do ours.

“This is a terrible idea, you know that, right?” Frost said. “You’re the master planner here. Why not wait until our friends over there overrun the tower? That’d make our job a lot easier.”

Linton shook his head. “We’ve taken too many losses. The forces we have left won’t serve as much more than a distraction. Couldess can turtle in that tower until he gets the reinforcements he needs to wipe us all out. He likely has defenders all the way to the top.”

A shell from a scuttler exploded in a group of rebel fighters, throwing ragged body parts around.

“This is the only shot we have left.”

“Linton’s right,” Cat said. “This bastard has had it coming for too long. It’s time to take the fight to him.”

Frost was placated. They skirted around the side of the courtyard to avoid detection, maneuvering to the back of the defending troops, then headed for the entrance.

The front entrance was closed and locked. Cat threw out a beam of plasma that tore through the mechanism, leaving a puddle of spitting metal on the ground, and the doors swung open.

The truthers took notice of the sound. They turned and opened fire on the trio of Bluebirds.

They rushed inside, bullets whizzing around them, and slid behind a corner. Linton struggled to breathe, blood trickling down his lower lip, but at least the pain wasn’t a problem.

“Can’t afford to be followed,” Linton said, wheezing. “Have to take on Couldess solo. No distractions.”

“No worries,” Cat said. “We’ll take these guys out first, then press on. I’ve got anima to spare.”

“Linton!” a familiar voice called, followed by footsteps clicking on the slick floor.

Linton looked up. Tess came up to them in a hurry. She clutched a knife in a white-knuckled grip, glanced around anxiously.

“What are you doing here?” Linton asked. “Was Cat unclear? I told you to stay well clear.”

“I know,” Tess said. She joined them in their little huddle. “But I had to see this through to the end. Come on, I have a shortcut that will take you to my dad.”

Linton peeked out beyond the doorway. A barrage of gunfire forced him to jerk his head back.

“Don’t worry,” Cat said. “You two get to Couldess. We’ll hold them off, right Frost?”

“Uh, right?”

“Right. Go on, off with you.”

Cat slid out from behind cover and hurled explosive pellets into the line of truthers slowly advancing on the gates.

“Go!” she shouted.

Linton got up and cast a shield over himself and Tess. He let her lead him across the lobby as gunfire glanced off the hardlight.

She took him into the elevator and pressed the button for Sub-Level 1.

“Aren’t we going the wrong direction?” Linton asked as the doors closed, casting a last look at his sister holding the line against a tide of MOW agents.

“We’d never make it to the top the normal way,” Tess said. “I know a better one. Trust me.”

They descended into the bowels of the tower.

***

“Baku Baku!” Cat shouted, producing a myriad of explosions from her palms that rocked the line of truthers. The agents scattered, quickly realizing that staying grouped together against a geomancer was suicide.

She danced away from their returning fire with, a light ward in front of her reflecting any stray bullets. She continually poured anima into it as it was shattered and repaired.

“What do I do?” Frost called over the ear-splitting noise of firing rifles. “I haven’t got a weapon!”

“I’ve got you!” Cat said. “Drida!” She used the spell to pull an assault rifle from the clutches of a dead truther, letting it slide onto the floor next to the doorway, where Frost cowered.

Frost picked up the weapon and fired a few bursts around the corner. Cat called pebbles from the ruined masonry to herself. She sent them off one by one as slapshots that tore through truther coats and incapacitated their wearers.

Slowly, the enemy numbers dwindled.

Cat allowed herself to feel hopeful for just a moment.

Then a single construct emerged from their ranks. Battle-scarred, jaw hanging slack, one eye sparking uncontrollably.

“This is the end,” Storm said, approaching without fear. “Are you ready?”