Roil (24 page)

The Gathering Plains remind us more than anywhere of the futility of war. What does it do but build resentment? It deposits rage for the generations ahead, and they pay its price with interest compounded.

GATHERING PLAINS

Out on the Gathering Plains the grass grew tall and the rains were lighter than they had been in Mirrlees for months, and far less frequent. So, with no sodden earth to suck hungrily at their boots or the wheels of their remaining carts, they made good progress. And that was not the only difference. It was cooler here. Cloud cover was minimal in the evenings, releasing the heat and revealing stars and moons in all their glory.

Medicine had almost forgotten what it was like to feel cold, they all had. It didn’t take long to remember. There was little fuel for fires, so people crammed into tents, their body heat making do.

Medicine wondered if it might not lead to a population spike in the Underground. There was certainly a lot of sex at night. Moans and groans and giggles kept him up until late. More’s the pity, none were coming from his tent.

Medicine sat alone, with his map powder and cartography arrayed before him. There was the Margin, a dark patch in the middle of the map, above it the huge space that was the Gathering Plains, marked only by Carnelon, the Cuttlefolk’s city.

A cold cup of tea sat against one elbow, a half-eaten plate of beans obscured the Narung Mountains on the map.

He took a pinch of map powder, to see it more vividly. All it did was reveal space, trackless nothingness, best considered while hurtling north by train, or from above, warm in the gondola of an Aerokin.

Agatha popped her head through the tent’s opening.

He lifted his head towards her, blinking away the powder.

“You want those beans?” she asked, gesturing at the table.

“No, I’m not hungry.”

She didn’t ask twice.

“What are you doing?” Her mouth still full of beans. Medicine frowned at her. “You’ve studied those maps a hundred times with and without powder. We’ve the Margin behind us. The Gathering Plains all around. We follow the Highway and the railway another hundred miles, then the Hidden Line. Not much map reading required.”

Medicine nodded, but his lips thinned. He squinted at the map, the Gathering Plains vaster now the plate had gone. “I never wanted this job.”

“Ah, so you blame yourself for those we lost?”

Medicine nodded. “Of course I do.”

“You think you killed them?”

Medicine looked at her.

“Cause you didn’t.” Agatha brushed his face with her fingertips, startling him. “Don’t let their deaths weigh down on you. No one said it would be easy. The Margin’s ghouls and haunts are hungry bastards, Roil take them. Be grateful that most of us survived the journey.”

Agatha’s craggy features betrayed little emotion, some sadness and some weariness. She watched him calmly, and Medicine drew a little of that calm to him, though his heart beat the faster for her gaze.

“How do you do it?” Medicine said. “How do you keep leading your soldiers?”

“Not much choice. If I didn’t do it, someone else would, and I know they’d be worse than me. I follow my orders, to the best of my not inconsiderable ability, and make sure that we make it through. It’s not easy. It never is. But the hard part’s over.”

“And what was that?”

“Getting out of that damn drowned city in the first place.”

Surely that couldn’t be enough. “This was not how I imagined it. How could I anticipate this? I was certain I would never work for the Council and I knew Stade would be my enemy till the day I died. Why, I expected him to slice open my throat, perhaps gloat over my corpse. Yet here I am.”

Agatha sat down next to him. “Loyalties are fickle things. We are talking about survival of the species now, think of every human gone, every vestige of our race worn away, not in eons, but in our lifetime. Do we just let that happen?”

“No, but what–”

“We’ve set our course,” she said, sliding the empty bowl away from her. “Now we see it through, because there is no turning back.”

The Gathering Plains worked at Medicine’s mind incessantly, and he was not the only one. At least in the swamps and the Margin they had the illusion of being enclosed, shielded, even if it was by a cruel hand, from long vistas, from endless space. Here the land opened out, and once the Margin was out of sight there seemed no landmark to give it a beginning or an end, beyond the occasional rocky hillock or twisted old tree, and even these were oddly threatening, distance dissolving them, making them disappear and reappear with no respect for perspective.

And Medicine could feel the land doing that to his thoughts, dragging them out destroying his sense of space.

All they had were the railway tracks and the highway, two parallel lines that ran straight and long all the way to the Narung Mountains.

These were Mirrlees people, and the undulating city with its great walls, bridges and levees devoured such views, the most open ground they had ever known was the Grangefeld Parklands or the sporting fields of Crickham and Montry. The emptiness ate at them, stars had never seemed so bright and yet so distant, the darkness beneath so vast. And the sky, the sky was a great blue dome threatening to lift them up and up into nothing. Even the grass that swayed and hissed with the wind, building in volume, well before its first breaths arrived, was vaguely threatening.

Medicine took to searching out Aerokin and airships just to break the grim monotony of those empty skies. However, this time of year most of the aircraft were down south for the festival so there were few of those, and the most interesting of those was of Hardacre make: a spy ship flying low and fast across the horizon.

He pointed out the ship to Agatha, though he suspected she had already seen it. “What do you reckon they make of us?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not much, I’d imagine. It’s the Cuttlefolk they’re interested in.”

“And should we be interested in them as well?”

“That remains to be seen. If the treaties still hold, it’s not a problem, but...”

“Yes,” Medicine said. “What ever happened to those trains?”

Four days from the Margin they found out in part.

The
Grendel
, and its carriages, sat hulking and motionless upon the tracks. The engine of the locomotive was intact, but for some minor damage. The carriages, too, were undisturbed, though blood stained one of the doors and a window or two had been shattered.

Agatha sent a dozen of her soldiers to search through the silent train. She and Medicine walked to the engine, the metal had been scored in places by gunshot.

“There’s ammunition and food in here, but no sign of life. What could have happened to them?”

“I think I know,” Medicine said, and pointed beyond the train.

“Oh,” Agatha’s voice was soft

He did not like this one little bit.

Out of the grass they came, five hundred Cuttlefolk at least, every one of them armed. Guns and sickles gleaming like death in the air. Behind them hovered their aerial troops, messengers armed with grenades and pistols.

“We could take out a few of them,” Agatha said, though she did not sound hopeful.

Medicine looked at his people, gathered beside the train. As one they pressed back against the rising slope of the trackbed.

Alone, Medicine might have suggested a last ditch, backs to the wall, shoot out. But he owed it to them, they had trusted him, this was nothing about his allegiance to Stade, but to the people who had made it with him through the Margin.

“No more pointless deaths, eh.”

Agatha followed his gaze, and frowned.

“If there’s still a chance,” he said, “we must take it. Isn’t that what the Underground is about?”

“You’re right, too many have died already. But, what if we have condemned them to slavery...”

“Even in slavery hope remains.”

“Have you ever been a slave?” Agatha said quietly, then she raised her voice. “Lower your weapons,” she shouted to her men.

Medicine watched the Cuttlefolk, they did not relax, nor lower their guns, but neither did they fire. He had to take some comfort in that, surely.

When the Roil finally made its move it was swifter than anyone expected, perhaps, even in those late days, swifter than could have been imagined.

When the Roil approached Chapman, it approached it definitively and in a way that made even the Grand Defeat seem like the smallest gambit, the merest assault.

“All this sitting around is killing me,” Margaret said.

“Cadell told us to wait,” David said, but he didn’t sound too pleased with the idea. He’d packed his and Cadell’s belongings into the
Roslyn Dawn
and they’d been waiting hours. Dawn wasn’t far off.

Margaret got up from her seat and walked over to David.

“Waiting is what I did last time. I waited for my parents until it was too late. Cadell has been gone for hours, he may be in trouble.”

“And what are we going to do?” David asked.

“Be a little quieter,” Kara Jade yelled from the nearby bed. “I’m trying to bloody sleep.”

Margaret turned her gaze towards Kara. The girl was really starting to annoy her. It was not as though it were difficult to fly in an Aerokin. Kara was little more than a glorified and spoiled passenger. As for quiet, she was the one who’d been banging around inside the
Dawn
, driving any hope of sleep from Margaret. If anyone should shut up it was Kara.

“We’ll be quiet,” Margaret said. “David, you and I are going to the Council of Engineers.”

“Do we have to?”

“Cadell needs us, I’m sure of it.”

“You didn’t see the way he handled those Quarg Hounds,” David said. “Though I’ll admit that councillors are different.”

Kara Jade coughed and Margaret and David turned to her. She was out of her bunk and scowling. Margaret groaned inwardly at the pout she directed at David. The foolish boy did not even notice it.

“Whatever you’re doing, do it now,” Kara said. “If you can’t find him, or if he is in trouble, come back here immediately.”

“And you’ll help us?” David asked.

Kara Jade nodded. “Help us get the hell out of here. I’m nervous now, I’ve been through the Obsidian Curtain. I have no intention of sticking around when it comes rushing over the walls, besides you’ve paid your passage.”

“We won’t be long,” Margaret said.

“Good.” Kara Jade was already ducking back into her bunk.

“I can’t stand her,” Margaret said as they made their way through the Field of Flight.

“I don’t think she’s that fond of you either,” David said.

What? How could anyone not like me?

“I could strangle her in one hand with my eyes closed.”

“Exactly,” David said.

Seemed most of the city couldn’t sleep this night, the dry heat and the looming festival keeping everyone awake. Everywhere ships and Aerokin bobbed, Drifter’s voices boomed, boasts becoming ever more outrageous as the countdown to the Festival proper began.

“She’s all right,” David said. “For a Drifter she seems much more normal than I would have thought possible.”

Margaret put her back to him, taking the lead so he wouldn’t see her grinding her teeth. She was sick of such talk… of talk in general. It surprised her how, after yearning for conversation for so long she had quickly grown tired of it. Starved of it, more than a few minutes of conversation proved too rich for her.

“I know a shortcut,” she said, and kept up her pace.

She had gone to the Tower of the Council of Engineers several times over the last few days, pausing at its doorway, unable to enter. She had wanted to, but far too many doubts assailed her. Both Anderson and her father had told her to trust no one. The one person Anderson had suggested, this Medicine Paul, had long ago lost influence in Chapman. She’d actually come across several wanted posters with his face on them.

David stumbled behind her. Margaret heard him curse beneath his breath, he was always stumbling over things. She smiled. For some odd reason, she trusted David. He was so unlike anyone she had ever known. All her life capable people had surrounded her, certain of their abilities and certain of hers, David seemed anything but. However, she knew he would not let her down. His shot at the Quarg Hound had proven that to her. She could count on him.

That is if he did not trip over and kill himself.

She wiped her brow, and her fingers came away covered in soot-blackened sweat.

The morning was hot, particularly down on the dusty streets, not a breath of air and the walls looming above. Round the levies where small leaks dripped into the night, too fast for the sun to leach away all the water, sludgy green ponds gave birth to mosquitoes, clouds of them to compete with the flies, nipping and sucking at blood or sweat. She had left her cold suit back at the
Dawn
, there was little charge remaining and she did not want to waste it. Unfortunately what passed for women’s fashion in this city was uncomfortable and impractical, frills, long skirts and hats. She had borrowed some of Kara Jade’s clothes, flight leathers, a thin scarf and cape, beneath which she had concealed her weapons, except a couple of guns, because most Drifters walked the city armed. She had to look the part though her skin was too pale.

Looking like a Drifter did not appeal to her, but it meant that she did not stand out too much. No more than the usual Drifter, and they loved to stand out.

They reached the Tower of Engineers, by way of nearly every back alley and side-street in the city. The heat of the day had seeped into everything, and by the time they found a hiding space with a clear view of the tower both were hot and tired.

Margaret had already seen enough to know they had no chance of ever getting any closer to the tower. But, despite the heat and the relative danger, it had felt good to be doing something.

“I don’t like this,” David said. A gun cracked in the distance and he jumped, eyes growing terribly wide. Any other time and she would have found it amusing.

“Nothing to worry about. You’re with me.”

“A woman with something of a death wish, possibly wanted by every Verger in the city. Yes, the sort of person a man
definitely
wanted by every Verger in the city should be paired with. I
couldn
’
t
be safer, nor could you.”

“Well,
you
let yourself get talked into this.” She pointed behind him.

“What?” David asked.

“That way lies the
Roslyn Dawn
. You are certainly welcome to strike out for it alone.”

The air was thick with dust, as well as what Margaret suspected were Roil spores. She could taste them in the back of her throat: an irritating dryness.

The sky above though was clear and blue.

There was a lot of activity, some of it responsible for the dust, carriages carted coolants for the cannon to the walls. Regular cannon were dragged from the nearby barrack grounds, scarring the road with their passage. So much industry, but it lacked the discipline of Tate. Margaret could see it from here, just as clearly as she could see doubt and fear in the face of every soldier.

She remembered Mcmahon and the guns stacked in their piles, yards high, all those dust-caked bones for the Quarg Hounds and the Endyms to play with. The North had not been wrong when they called it the Grand Defeat.

Margaret saw how it continued to haunt these people. She did not blame them, Mcmahon haunted her as well. She had seen the Roil in all its strength. Night was coming to this city no matter how many cannon they set upon its walls.

Without warning, David grabbed her shoulder and Margaret jumped. She had to stop herself from spinning and punching him in the throat.

Hah! And she had thought David was jumpy.

“Don’t,” she said.

David’s hand dropped, and he gave her that hurt look again. She wondered if he’d developed that as an addict, a forced sort of helplessness. “What is it?”

“The Verger,” he whispered. “Tope, he’s over there.”

Margaret squinted out into the light, one hand shading her eyes.

“I can see him,” she said, keeping her voice low. She did not like what she saw. “Let’s get out of here, now. You’re right, David, Cadell can look after himself.”

“Back to the Field of Flight?” David asked.

“Yes, but not directly. If anyone is following us I want to make it difficult.”

“If we head towards the wall, we can swing around to the Field. At least I think...” David pulled out the map he had bought, almost losing it to the wind, as he folded it to the relevant section. Margaret nearly knocked it out of his hand, in her city someone checking a map would have stood out, an aberration, here though, even on the edge of the abyss, tourists abounded. In fact at least three other people on the street were looking at maps, and no one was looking at them.

David pinched a little map powder under his nose, and his eyelids fluttered, he traced a section of the map with a finger, seeing it far more clearly than her. ‘Ah, yes. All we have to do is walk a small part of the wall, look, here, near the sea, and come back on the field from the north. There’s a pub along the way, three in fact, we could–”

“Sounds good to me,” she said. “But we’ve no time for you to score your precious drug. Don’t look at me like that, David. I have been warned, and you really were talked into coming easily.”

“You don’t even–”

Margaret snorted at him.

David puffed himself up indignantly. Margaret clenched her jaw to stifle a laugh. “Look, I’m not taking, anymore. Not since… since you saw me last,” David said. “I don’t even think about it. And if I was going to, now would be... but I’m not.”

She let the lie hang there. David frowned.

“Can we save this for later,” he said. “Believe me or don’t, but we have to get going. We’ve stayed here too long as it is.”

“I’m no fool,” Margaret said, already making her way down the street.

David stood behind her for a moment, she could feel his eyes on her, but she didn’t clarify what she meant by that, or turn to see if he understood her. David may be an addict, but he wasn’t stupid.

Chapman was a noisy city, but it possessed a very different quality of noise to Tate. There were no hums and tintinnabulations for one. Radio signals still worked here, as did the phone lines. In Tate, the cannon were always firing, the coolers always running, generators always thrumming or rumbling from outer wall to the peak of the cooling vents. Tate had been a clockwork city all right, with a thousand bells and whistles, when one machine stopped another was already starting up.

This deliquescent thunder was a different thing altogether.

Margaret leant against Chapman’s eastern wall, on its southernmost corner, her fingers brushed against stone that was warm, not frozen, and alive to the movement of the crashing waters below. She glared out at the sea. It shone in the sunlight; she had never seen so much water in all her life. She breathed deep, enjoying the briny challenge of the wind. Here the air felt alive – not stale and cloying or bitter with gasoline and coolant – and the horizon was so distant that the world actually seemed to dip away into endlessness. Gulls cried in the sky above her.

This is what she had lost. This is what had been stolen from her.

It had been an easy task to evade the Verger, if he’d even been hunting them in the first place. Two streets from the wall and he was gone, and afterwards their pace had become more leisurely, as though this were just a simple morning’s walk along the wall.

Mounted against battlements next to her was an ice cannon, a much inferior design to her parents’ and poorly constructed. The welding was sloppy, the mounting plate already cracked in places. She examined it sadly, for all that it was not like the cannon of Tate; it reminded her of her home. Her eyes blurred with tears.

This cannon and its two-dozen siblings lined up along the wall would do little to stop what was coming, like the ocean’s waves the Roil was relentless and would not be denied.

She considered what she had seen yesterday. The resources of the Roil must be immense if it could build such a massive army and heat sinks in just the few days since she had left the Interface.

An intelligence was guiding it and the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that it was her mother.

She had always been the logistics specialist, the one who could manage Tate as a whole.

“Mother,” she whispered. “What have you done?”

“It’s building isn’t it?” David said, standing by her side eyes fixed on the Roil.

So you
’
re talking to me again
, she thought.

“At least it looks as though Cadell has swayed the Council a little,” she said. “Something has obviously been put into effect. Look at the defences. Have you ever seen so many guards on the Southern Wall? And I’ve counted seven new cannon.”

“I still don’t know why people stay here. It’s crazy,” David said.

Margaret pointed back over the city. “This is their home. No one wants to leave their homes, their lives, people just don’t uproot that easily. That explains everything, the Festival, even the queues to get into the city. The North of Shale has always been about Mirrlees and Chapman and, to a lesser extent, Hardacre, even I know that. And while all three places survive they can imagine nothing is really wrong, and from what Cadell has told me your government has encouraged that. But soon it will be much harder. Soon and much, much too late.”

Margaret looked about her. As she saw it, it was already too late.

David glanced at his watch. “They’re about to launch the Festival. We have to get back. We have stayed here too long as it is.”

Margaret nodded, though she stared a little longer at the sea and the docks where seagulls massed in crying squalls around ships just in from the morning’s catch. From what she had heard it was a dangerous job, though the Roil did not extend too far from the coast, the areas of the sea over which it stretched seemed just as transformed as the land. And on those edges storms whipped up with a ferocity unseen on the land.

Increasingly ships set out and never came back. Discounting those that had chosen to flee north, there were still so many unreturned. The last few months had been dire indeed. However, the fisher folk were not unfamiliar with tragedy. The sea was both cruel and kind to those who made a living from it. People still had to put food on the table, world’s end nigh or not.

A cry rang out along the wall, and then sirens started their baleful lament.

“David,” she said, but he was already staring south at the horror rising there.