Back down by the gates, Dench would have the tunnels he knew about covered against attack, by people waving weapons at least.
Pasha muttered under his breath as we waited, and waited. “Come on, come on, what’s keeping them?”
“I know this sounds like a stupid question, but can you smell bacon?” I could, again, but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t my shrivelled stomach playing tricks on me.
I used the telescope to look out over the camp. Behind the nearest machine belching out missiles, behind the swathe of tents that might have been white once but were now a uniform mud-grey, there was definitely some sort of corral arrangement. It had some animals in it, I couldn’t really tell what – most animals I had only seen in books – but perhaps even pigs. Goddess’s tits, I’d have sold my soul to have just one, crisping nicely. I swallowed a mouthful of drool and told my stomach to shut the hell up.
Pasha gave me a funny look, but he sniffed and shook his head. “You’re imagining it. I wish you weren’t though.”
Another salvo, another boom-shudder that made me drop the telescope and hang on to the outcrop with my good hand. It really was a long way down. I tried not to look, but it was like telling yourself not to think about marshmallows – suddenly that’s all you can think about. The rock we were sitting on wasn’t very wide. It was also steeply sloping, and slippery, the freezing rain turning to slushy ice as it hit the rock, which wasn’t ideal for holding-on purposes. And there was me with only one hand that worked. Down there, where I was sure I’d drop, were a lot more rocks. Eventually, anyway.
So I was glad when it all kicked off – took my mind off a messy death. Lise’s cunning little plan started with what looked like mist drifting across the narrow valley the Storad were camped in. Only mist isn’t usually green. It didn’t take long for the gas to plume out of the tunnel, and we could hear the sudden choking faintly from here. Not lethal, the gas, but nasty, with a horrendous stench that seemed to coat all your airways. An invention of Lise’s and one she’d used on me once upon a time, in a different life.
I picked up the telescope from where it had rolled, balanced it on the outcrop and, taking my life in my one working hand, looked through it. Took me a minute to find the right place, but then Dench staggered out of his muddy tent, his moustache stiff with anger before he clamped a cloth over his nose and mouth. He waved his free arm about and men staggered to obey whatever orders he’d just given. They found it hard, because coughing so much you feel like your guts are going to come up does that to a person. Good luck to them fighting that gas, because that was all they would find.
“Well?” I laid the telescope down and grabbed back hold of the mountain.
A small wet crack as Pasha dislocated a finger, then a pained chuckle. “Oh yes, he’s distracted as shit. Not thinking about anything except clear the gas, check for attackers coming through it while they’re weak. He’s swearing at you too. Quite a lot.”
“Good. All right, let’s see if I can do this.”
It was a long shot, at best. I didn’t think it would work and it was going to hurt – a lot – but it had to be worth a try. Even if it only slowed the Storad down. Time was what we needed, what Lise needed to get her genius in gear and find something that would give us the edge in this war, to finish the mysterious gadget she was working on.
I let go of the outcrop – reluctantly, it has to be said – and got myself settled as best I could, leaning up against a wall of rock at my back. I kept my eyes on the Storad machines, which were quiet now, with their crews concentrating on breathing rather than firing. But the gas wouldn’t last long before it blew away, and then it would be back to blasting the shit out of the gates again. I didn’t dare try this while they were firing – crap only knows what would have happened.
It didn’t take much. With my hand as screwed as it was, I only needed a little twist for the pain to bloom, bright and large, in my head. And with the pain came power. It fizzed in my blood, sparked in my head and, as always, it brought its friend along for the ride. The black was getting harder and harder to ignore, but I did my best and concentrated on the machines.
Another twist, another burst of juice, another sing-song in my head. Come on, Rojan, come in. Let it all go and sink into me. You know you want to. I gritted my teeth against it, against the pull of the pain, the pull of glorious nothingness to fall into.
The machines were like nothing I’d ever seen before, but Lise had studied them as well as she could from this distance and she’d explained them to me in words of one syllable. I knew what part I had to go for, the easiest to find and rearrange. The long barrel that was pointing at the gates. Just a little rearrangement, nothing fancy. Mould the metal, pinch the barrel. Block those big-arse bullets. With any luck, it’d backfire too. Take that boom-shudder, you bastards.