Empire of Unreason (51 page)

“Before the flood,” the old man said, “four children were born.

Their father was a chief, and as they grew, they became monsters.

At first they were just a little rough on the other children, but since
their father was a chief, they were tolerated. In time they killed and
ate one of their playmates, and people understood that the children
were bad. But by then it was too late. They grew up, taller than
trees, and they could reach down and grab people wherever they
went. Finally they got so tall they could reach anywhere in the
world, but they couldn’t reach their own feet. They had grown
together, like a giant tree with a different face for each direction.

They could not walk around anymore.

“So the only safe place to live, you see, was right at their feet. That’s
where our ancestors went to live. If they wandered out too far,
though, the monsters could still reach them. That’s why the flood
came, eventually, to kill the four monsters before they grew all the
way to the sky and started pulling down the stars.”

That was wrong, Red Shoes knew. The flood hadn’t come to kill the
giants, but
because
of them. Or maybe—

Maybe all these years he had been wrong.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Wrong about what? What were these thoughts, these memories?

Sparks flashed behind his eyes, and his skull hurt as if it were
breaking apart. He flexed his great wings, and the sound of his
thousand rattles filled the heavens.

The old man noticed.
“You
are growing,” he said.
“You
are growing
tall.”

Suddenly everything snapped into focus, and the pain was gone.

“But I am not yet so tall that you can hide at my feet,” Red Shoes
said. He smiled grimly as he lit a fire in the old man’s veins,
watched his eyeballs burst like ripe plums as the steam inside him
boiled out.

The watching children screamed. He killed them, too.

He didn’t like the houses, so he set them on fire. Then the warriors
woke up and came for him, and he popped them like flint corn on a
hot rock, first one by one, then in numbers.

That was what Red Shoes remembered.

12.

Cavalries

Francisco pushed Franklin flat beneath the whining bullets. Behind
him, someone shrieked in agony as three more muskets went off.

People were shooting at him from both directions.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Keep low,” Francisco shouted and then, ignoring his own advice,
leapt up.

Someone hurtled from the darkness to meet him, and suddenly
Francisco and someone else were straddling over Franklin,
shouting and grappling. As Franklin kicked against the ground,
sliding away from them, he heard a peculiar, meaty sound and a
gurgle, and one of the two shapes fell.

The other bent quickly toward him, and he saw the silhouette of an
ax against the stars.

And then Robert—Franklin knew him by his cursing— was
suddenly standing over him, too, and this time there was a sound
almost exactly like a pumpkin splitting after having been dropped.

Something wet splattered on Ben’s face.

“Up, Ben!” Robert shouted.

“But they’re shooting—”

“That’s Don Pedro’s men, knocking down Cowetas. Come on!”

There was a sudden moment of quiet, and then more
pandemonium. Don Pedro’s men had either reloaded or, more
likely—given the heartbeats in which this had all taken place—

drawn new weapons. Blazing sparks lit the night again.

“Wait, Robin. Francisco!” He knelt at the two bodies near him,
realizing he didn’t know which was which. They were both Indians,
both dressed much alike, at least in the darkness.

It did not matter, for they were both dead as stones.

It seemed to take forever to get mounted. The hubbub in the near
distance continued, but all the warriors unfortunate enough to
choose the right direction in which to search for the fugitives
seemed to be either dead or fled.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Ben’s horse followed the one in front of it at a trot.

Oglethorpe watched the ships grow nearer, still waving his sword
and shouting his defiance. He aimed to pass right under the big
airships and then straight on to the kneeling line of redcoats
between him and the river. With any luck at all, they might be able
to take a few of the bastards with them.

But then he caught a motion from the corner of his eye, saw
another body of horse bearing down out of the mountains to his
right.

And they did not wear red. He shouted in exultation, thinking at
first by their dark faces they might be the Cherokee, at long last
fulfilling their promise to help; and for that instant, he thought his
men might actually have a chance. But then it registered how few
the newcomers were—twelve or so at the most. Not much of an
addition, hardly a drop in the ocean.

“Great God!” Parmenter cried.

Oglethorpe jerked his eyes from the horsemen in time to see the
airships fall. They made an impressive sound as they bounced and
splintered.

“Unoka!” Oglethorpe shouted, for now he could see the little
African, brandishing the devil gun in the air, hear the triumphant
cries of the Maroons as they flowed into his charge and became one
with them.

Almost without thinking, Oglethorpe wheeled his charging men
through the wreckage of the airships, which now shielded them
from the infantry beyond. When they came from amongst the
hulks, they had only fifty yards to go.

Of course, fifty yards could be a damn long way when you were
facing a line of muskets. A wall of smoke puffed toward them.

Parmenter grunted, but held his saddle—everyone else was behind
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

him, so Oglethorpe couldn’t see how many died in that first volley.

The second rank fired while the first rank reloaded.

But they were now close enough so that two volleys was all the
enemy got; and Oglethorpe drove straight into the bayonets, firing
his pistol, slashing with the broadsword.

The ranks were thin. They had been spread to give maximum
firepower, not to absorb a charge which, by all rights, should never
have come anywhere near them. Still, Oglethorpe counted it a
miracle—a true, honest miracle—when they were suddenly
through, and there was the river and beyond it the welcoming
haven of the forest.

With no letup, he plunged into the stream, his men behind him.

Bullets kicked spume in the water so it looked like every fish in the
river was spitting; but with sudden, fierce joy, he knew for sure that
God was on his side. They had already done the impossible—having
come this far, they would make it all the way.

His newfound faith got more reinforcement an instant later, as
guns began barking from the forest beyond the river—and these
guns were not aimed at them but at the redcoats.

By the time he was free of the river and in the sheltering trees, he
was actually laughing. What else could he do? The redcoats were
retreating across the field, double time.

Later he found time to thank God more formally, with a long and
earnest prayer. Not only had he given them a miracle, but of his
fifty-four remaining men, only five had been killed in the mad dash,
though many, Parmenter included, were wounded. Unoka had lost
two.

Their allies across the river were Coweta, and that’s about all he
knew. Tomochichi was deep in parley with them, and would be for
some hours.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Having thanked God, he had someone else to thank.

The Maroons kept to their own campfire, of course, easily found by
the noise they made. When he reached it, he saw the black men
ringed around Unoka, who was singing in his own language. His
men gave answering calls, clapping their hands or beating sticks in
strange rhythms; and Oglethorpe felt transported to a continent he
had never seen, to the wild jungles that had given many of these
men birth.

As he listened to the strange music, his throat caught. It was both
triumphant and melancholy. Surely they missed their homeland as
much as he missed England. Just as surely, they were determined
that their home was now here, in America.

He stood mesmerized, not thinking to intrude, but after a time they
noticed him standing there.

“Come an‘ talk to us, General!” Unoka shouted. “Tell us about you
crazy charge!”

“I didn’t come here to say anything about me,” Oglethorpe said. “I
came to tell you that, by damn, you are men such as I have never
known. And I have never been prouder to ride with anyone.”

Unoka nodded. “Didn’t‘t’ink we were comin’, did you?”

“We thought you met with ill chance.”

“T’at we did, time an‘ time again, an’ we got behind, always two
paces behind. But we caught up, didn’t we?”

“Damned if you didn’t,” Oglethorpe said. “And damn glad I am. And
if you gentlemen will permit it, I would like to shake the hand of
every last one of you.”

Morning brought soberer reflection. Two more of his men had died
of their wounds. The Coweta had pitched in out of anger at the
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

redcoats and admiration for the courage of the Colonials, but they
made it clear that the war still wasn’t theirs. What Tomochichi did
get out of them was a few guides who knew the area, who assured
them that they could get them to the margravate, flying eyes or no.

“It’s what we ought to do,” Parmenter said. “We did what we set out
to, an‘ then some.”

“I quite agree,” Oglethorpe murmured.

“I count this a victory,” Parmenter said, wincing as he tried to sit
up. A bullet had shattered two ribs but seemed to have missed his
vitals.

Oglethorpe thought about all his men who would never count
anything again. He clapped the ranger on the shoulder lightly.

“Many more victories like this,” he said, “and we will have no need
of a defeat.”

“I know you’re right, sir, but whatever comes, it was glorious,
wasn’t it?”

“That is was, Mr. Parmenter. That it was.”

Pain brought Adrienne back, sharp stinging pain on her cheeks,
and she opened her physical eyes to Crecy drawing her hand back
for another slap. The redhead hesitated. “Adrienne?”

“Why are you hitting me, Veronique?”

“You were—you were gone from us.”

Adrienne noticed that she was no longer on the deck of the airship.

She was in her cabin, her clothes loosened.

Her head hurt, very much.

“How long?”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Nine hours.”

“And how long have you been slapping me?”

“Nine hours, on and off. I’ve never seen you like that.”

“I’ve never experienced that either.” She rubbed her forehead. “Did
it work? Did we escape the keres?”

“It must have. We still live, and the monster went off after
Menshikov’s ships.”

Adrienne nodded, feeling faint. “I hope he gives it a good chase,”

she said.

“After all he has done?”

“Of course. The longer it chases him, the longer it will be before we
must face it again.”

“Ah. And yet we follow the source of it, do we not? How can we
know this army we chase does not have a hundred of those things?”

“We don’t,” Adrienne replied. “Certainly they have more than one.

They may have far worse things.”

“With creatures like that,” Crecy said, “I don’t see why they need an
army at
all
.”

Adrienne shrugged. “A question for Uriel, when he comes to me
again. I suspect that this has more to do with the factions of the
malakim than it has to do with a sensible plan of conquest. For
whatever reason, some of them are reluctant to destroy humanity
outright—I think they would rather have us kill ourselves. That
engine could swallow cities, but it was sent with a singular purpose

—to destroy New Moscow and ourselves.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“It left quite a trail, coming here. We’re following it backward,
toward the east.”

“You see? I’ve been told the dark engines are of recent invention.

Perhaps this was the first test of them. If they had been using them
since the army set out, two years ago, there would be nothing of
this continent left.”

“But they have them now,” Crecy said.

“Yes. And so we must learn to destroy them.”

“What if they cannot be destroyed?”

Adrienne smiled grimly. She had spoken to her son. He was real, he
was alive, and she could find him again. Anyone who got in the way
of that courted disaster, no matter what sort of engine they had
with them.