The Nine Read online

  The mech named Bren halted and spun, smiling, with his hands clasped politely at his waist. “They’ve departed, Lord Warden.”

  “Departed?” Abbas cried, and for all the drama that he embued the word with, Mala was sure that he already knew. “How on earth could this happen? Who is responsible for allowing the prisoners to depart? I believe I gave specific orders! These damned mechs, you’ll all be the death of me one day!”

  Bren just kept smiling. “Of course, Lord Warden. Whimsby took them. He said that you had given orders to have them released. This all occurred while you were unconscious, so I was unable to verify—”

  “Enough!” Abbas snapped. Mala watched his Adam’s apple bob. He turned back towards her, and spread his hands again, going into a half-bow. “It seems there has been some confusion. And I, uh…it seems…”

  Mala extinguished her shield and stepped towards him. Her boots clacked a slow, inevitable rhythm on the tile floors. Her longstaff hummed eagerly in her grip. Her mind felt afire, heat creeping up the back of her neck.

  Abbas wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Uh…it would appear…which is to say…I believe…or perhaps…”

  “Abbas, Abbas, Abbas,” Mala hissed. “Your ineptitude knows no bounds.”

  “Inept?” He squirmed. “Perhaps a strong word, not that I would ever disagree with someone so…ah…so…”

  “Ready to kill you?” She offered, taking another step closer to him.

  He fixated on the muzzle of her longstaff. “Ah…hm…that seems a drastic measure to take, wouldn’t you say?”

  Mala eased forward one more step, until the blade of the longstaff hovered, inches from Abbas’s flabby neck. “Oh, it doesn’t seem so drastic to me. You give me intelligence, hoping to get on my good side. You promise me that you’ll have the prisoners waiting for me, in irons, alive. You promised me, Abbas. Do you know what I normally do to people that break their promises to me?”

  Abbas’s eyes fluttered. A greasy sweat broke out on his forehead. “Well, ah, I believe you typically slaughter them in the dueling arena, but such a thing would be very unfair, as I am not Gifted and cannot possibly fight you.”

  She snapped the longstaff away from his neck so quickly that he gasped. She slammed the butt of it down on the ground, cracking the marble. “You’re right, Abbas. You’re not Gifted. You’re just…human.”

  “A bit harsh—”

  “No more,” she snapped. “I’d rather speak to someone who actually seems to know what’s going on. Bren. Approach, please.”

  Bren hurried over, not sparing a glance at his master. He knew the protocols. Mala was a demigod. Abbas was just the Lord Warden. “Yes, Paladin Mala? How can I be of service to you?”

  “Come with me,” Mala said, giving Abbas one last withering glance before spinning and heading for the front doors, at which there were now posted the servants that should have been there in the first place. They opened the doors for her as she approached. “When did they leave?”

  “Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds ago, Paladin Mala.”

  Mala hit the front steps, angling for the skiff that she’d landed close by, forgoing the formality of landing on the lawn. “What mode of transportation did they use?”

  “A skiff, Paladin Mala.”

  “You may stop calling me Paladin Mala,” she said. “Describe the occupants of that skiff.”

  “Of course…ma’am…one smaller young male by the name of Perry, a tall young male by the name of Sagum, a young woman by the name of Teran, and a rather large man who appears to be a former legionnaire named Stuber. And of course, one of our own mechs, named Whimsby.”

  Mala stopped and turned on Bren. “One of your own mechs? So Abbas gave an order to have them released?”

  The anger came flooding back to her. Her grip tightened on her longstaff again, and she had every intention of barging right back through those doors and splattering that fatbody all over his marble atrium. There was no shortage of Un-Gifted to replace him as Lord Warden.

  “No, ma’am, Abbas gave orders for them to be captured.” Bren’s brows creased, looking confused. “Whimsby appears to be suffering from some unknown malady of the core processor. He defied Abbas’s orders and went against protocol. It was all very strange.”

  Mala had been to Praesidium twice before. She recalled Whimsby, as he was not difficult to forget. He dressed in a most unusual fashion, and spoke oddly. She’d never given it much thought, as she assumed that these were protocols from many hundreds of years ago when Whimsby had been created.

  Now she wondered if it wasn’t something else that caused his eccentricity.

  Another failure of Abbas. He should have identified that and handled the problem.

  She really should kill him. No one would begrudge her.

  Three and a half minutes, she reminded herself. More like four now.

  Time was running short. She leapt from her spot on the steps, launching herself into the air and landing gracefully on the deck of the skiff. She looked down over the side to where Bren smiled up at her.

  “Which direction were they headed?” she demanded, her fingers tapping through the liftoff procedures as she spoke.

  “Due east, ma’am,” Bren said. “If it might be helpful, they are still on Praesidium’s long-range scanners, though I think they are flying low through the valleys, as their signature is going in and out. Would you like me to direct that information to your console?”

  “That would be very helpful, Bren.” Mala yanked the controls and the skiff rose with such blistering speed that a normal human would have been plastered to the deck. Once she had enough altitude to clear the roofline of Praesidium, she punched the thrusters to max speed.

  Out of the clouds far to the northeast, she saw a flurry of small black shapes appear.

  The praetors.

  Let them go through Abbas first. It would allow Mala to maintain her precious headstart on them.

  ***

  “Perry!” Teran called out to him, struggling in his direction along the deck of the skiff. The footing was uncertain with Whimsby’s sudden changes in direction, following the meandering path of a river below them.

  Perry crossed around the front of the control console and met her halfway. The wind was loud, and whipped at Teran’s hair, but at the speed they were going the nose of the skiff seemed to create a bubble of dead air right above the deck, so that they didn’t have to shout to hear each other.

  She was slung into a rifle that looked like a newer, sleeker version of Stuber’s old Roq-11. She thumbed the strap where it sat against the skin of her shoulder, and leaned into Perry. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “We’ve always got a problem,” Perry said. “What’s the new one?”

  “We found something when we were searching,” her eyes scoured over Perry’s, and he didn’t like the expression in them. “Sagum called it a mainframe. It had a bunch of information on it. We were able to access a map that let us see…” her eyes stretched wide as though re-imagining the wonder of it. “…Like, the whole fucking world, Perry.”

  Perry stood there, not having an inkling of where she was going with this, but really worrying about the part where she said it was a problem.

  She shook her head. “Perry, we’re nowhere near the East Ruins.”

  “What?” he nearly shouted. “What do you mean nowhere near? Like, we’ve got a few more miles to go?”

  “Like a few hundred more to go.” She cringed. “At least.”

  The skiff jolted through another sharp canyon turn, and Perry seized Teran’s shoulder by reflex. His stomach felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the motion of the craft.

  “A few hundred,” he echoed finally, when he’d gotten enough saliva back in his mouth to make his throat work. “At least.”

  “At least. We weren’t able to take a good measurement. I’m just guessing.”

  Perry seized on some silver lining: “But you did find it? It really does exist?”

&n
bsp; She nodded. “It’s on the map, anyways. It’s all the way across the land. All the way to the ocean.”

  “It’s in the ocean?”

  “No, it’s right on the edge.”

  “A city on the edge of the ocean,” Perry gaped. How on earth could they manage such a thing? His brain dredged up an image of Karapalida, with half the city in water. Was that what made it the ruins? Had it always been on the edge of the ocean, or had the ocean crept up on it?

  But it’s there, he told himself. And if it’s out there, then you can still complete your mission.

  “A few hundred miles,” Perry said again. “That could wind up being a problem if we don’t have enough juice on this skiff. I mean, I could see us walking for a hundred miles or so, that’s not so much bigger than the Glass Flats, right?”

  “But what if this shit goes down soon?” Teran pressed. “We need to know what we’re in for.”

  “Whimsby!” Perry called as he turned. He stalked—a little awkwardly—back to the control console.

  Whimsby’s eyes were ahead, his hands on the controls. “Yes, Master Perry? Something I can do for you?”

  “First off, where are you taking us?”

  “East, goodsir.” Whimsby looked at him and held his gaze, even as he piloted the skiff through a narrow gap between two ridges. “I was under the impression that you wanted to go to the East Ruins. Is that not the case?”

  “No, that’s the case. How far is the East Ruins from Praesidium?”

  “From Praesidium, it is four-hundred-and-two-point-three-six miles.”

  Perry choked, though there was nothing in his mouth. “Four hundred?”

  “And-two-point-three-six miles, yes. From Praesidium.”

  “And how far is it from us right now?”

  “At the point that you asked the question, we were three-hundred-and-eighty-two-point-zero-seven miles from the East Ruins. Or at least, from the center of the East Ruins. Give or take five miles if you are referring to simply the start of the city.”

  “Whimsby!”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re never going to make it that far!”

  “No, we won’t.”

  “Well, how far are we going to make it?”

  “At our current altitude and atmospheric conditions, and averaging for the somewhat serpentine course we are having to take, we will likely be airborne for another thirty-seven miles. Roughly.”

  Perry steadied himself on the console, gawking at Whimsby. “That’s over three hundred miles left to walk!”

  “A very astute observation, goodsir.”

  “We don’t have enough supplies! We can’t walk that far!”

  “Well, you won’t be flying, so…” Whimsby stopped. A frown creased his brow. He twisted where he stood and looked behind them.

  Perry craned his neck and looked over Whimsby’s shoulder to where the mountains receded behind them, their peaks turning blue and hazy with distance. “What? What’s wrong?”

  Whimsby turned back around. “We’re being followed.”

  Perry squinted his eyes, but could see nothing but the mottled colors of the wooded mountains. If Whimsby had seen anything, it had been by using vision far superior to human eyes. “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure. One skiff. Single occupant.” Whimsby glanced at Perry. “It appears to be a paladin.”

  Perry swore. “Does this thing have rear guns?”

  Whimsby shook his head. “They’re not made for dogfighting. Weapon pods are in the fore only.”

  “We’re not going to outrun them,” Teran said from beside Perry. “We don’t have enough juice for it.”

  “I know.” Perry held up a hand, his brain shooting through a handful of bad options and not liking any of them. “Whimsby, I can’t see them. Can they have seen us?”

  “I’m uncertain on that. Paladins have better eyesight than normal, but I’m not certain they’ve spotted us visually just yet. They may have us on scanners, though.”

  A half-assed plan started to form in Perry’s head, but it was better than standing around with no idea of what to do. “Okay, hold on, Whimsby. Just keep flying. Don’t let them know we’ve seen them.”

  “Naturally.”

  Perry hauled for the fore of the ship. Stuber stood, face to the wind and body locked into the weapon pods. It was a standing arrangement with two controls, one for each hand, that targeted the two big cannons on either side of the nose.

  “Stuber!” Perry called, slapping him on the back.

  Stuber turned and raised an eyebrow in response.

  “We’re being followed by someone. One skiff. Single occupant.” Perry left out the paladin part. No need to get everyone discouraged about their dismal chances. Though in the case of Stuber, it may have just riled him up. “I’m going to have Whimsby drop us in behind one of these peaks and when the skiff comes by I want you to light their ass up, can you do that?”

  “Ha!” Was Stuber’s only reply. He snugged into his controls, smiling.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Perry said, then stumbled back to the aft. “Whimsby, find some place to put us so that the other skiff won’t see us. When they fly by, Stuber’s going to fire on them.”

  “An admirable proposition,” Whimsby said. “Unless they have us on scanners.”

  “If you go low, won’t our signature be blocked by the mountain?”

  “I can certainly try,” Whimsby said, looking around at the terrain flying by them. “But I make no promises.”

  “That’s alright, promises tend to not work out anyways. We’ll adapt.”

  “There,” Whimsby said, nodding straight ahead to a rocky outcropping that jutted off the otherwise sheer face of a mountain side. “I’m going to pull us in to a hover right behind those rocks and pull up close to the mountain.” He amplified his voice. “Passengers please hold on, I’m about to execute a somewhat aggressive maneuver.”

  Sagum’s head popped up from where he was hunkered down against the wind. “Aggressive maneu—?”

  As the rocky outcropping roared towards them on the left, Whimsby yanked the controls in a variety of rapid directions. The skiff slowed dramatically, knocking Perry and Teran into each other. They maintained their feet only by clutching the side of the console.

  The aft of the skiff swung around in a tight spin, and then Whimsby jerked the throttle backwards, sending the skiff hauling in reverse, straight at the mountain.

  “Gods in the skies!” Sagum wailed.

  Perry felt like the air had been sucked from his lungs, which he was actually glad for, because he might’ve screamed as the rock face loomed ahead of them and he swore that Whimsby truly had gotten a wire crossed and aimed to plant the skiff right into the stone.

  But then in another sudden deceleration, the skiff pulled to a complete stop.

  The cliff face was close enough to the aft that Perry could reach out and touch it. To their right, the rocky outcropping was speckled with gnarled pines, the branches dusting the side of the skiff.

  Perry gulped a breath of air. “Threaded the needle a bit there, huh, Whimsby?”

  Whimsby smiled. “My piloting is very accurate. Stuber, standby for contact. The skiff will arrive in approximately twenty seconds.”

  Stuber keyed the holographic sights and they jumped into the air in front of his face, the reticle searching for something to lock onto.

  “Teran! Sagum!” Perry marched through the center of the skiff towards the fore. “Get ready!”

  “What are we gonna do with a couple of rifles?” Sagum said, but rose to his feet, shouldering a rifle identical to Teran’s.

  “You’re going to shoot at them,” Perry said, frowning as he passed the man.

  “But carefully,” Stuber called over his shoulder. “Don’t shoot me in the back.”

  Perry parked himself at Stuber’s side, his longstaff raised, his mind connected to it, and in his shield as well, waiting to trigger it if need be.

  “Ten seconds,�
� Whimsby called out.

  Stuber’s targeting reticle danced about, moving to a boulder, then dismissing it, then to a tree across the valley, and dismissing it also, and then jiggled about as though frustrated that there was nothing to kill.

  Stuber took in a deep breath through his nose and blew it out through pursed lips.

  “Don’t get nervous now,” Perry said, though his own voice was tight.

  “There’s nothing wrong with nervous,” Stuber grunted. “For instance, I’m nervous that Sagum’s going to shoot me in the back of the head. We just can’t be fearful. Which is why my focus remains outward. Even though I’m about to get shot in the head.”

  “He’s not going to shoot you in the head.”

  “I’ll believe you when he doesn’t shoot me in the head.”

  The roar of an approaching skiff reached them, and built rapidly. It seemed to come from all around them, echoing off the mountainsides.

  Perry’s longstaff hummed in his hands.

  The roar reached a heightened pitch.

  And then suddenly cut out.

  “What—?” Perry started.

  The skiff swerved around the edge of the outcropping, thirty yards in front of them. But it wasn’t broadside to them, as Perry has been expecting. It faced them, full on, gunpods brought to bear.

  Perry had no time for a cogent thought.

  The muzzles of the enemy gunpods flared, and by reflex, Perry thrust his shield out in front of them, forming a shimmering, conical shape directly in front of their skiff, which was as far as Perry was able to project it.

  He immediately knew he’d made a mistake.

  In the same instant that Perry activated his shield, Stuber fired both gunpods.

  The effect was immediate and devastating.

  The world in front of Perry’s face was suddenly engulfed in fire, the shockwave of Stuber’s rounds slamming him in the face and chest like he’d run full-on into a stone wall. He felt his body flying backwards as bits of shrapnel hissed through the air around him. He saw them, in that instant of flight, but he couldn’t hear them. They looked like insects, splitting the air, leaving tiny contrails in their wake.