Last to Rise(57)

He had a point, but even I wouldn’t say that to him. I was glad no one had told me he’d seen me die in the tunnel though. Really glad. I tried a bit of diplomacy – it came easier if I thought of it as lying, which I could do in my sleep. “You’ll find a use for it, I’m sure, find a way to make it work. You just have to think hard and practise a lot.”



He nodded glumly. “All right. But you have to make the Archdeacon see, or I won’t get the chance because we’re screwed at the gates.”



I told him I would, but I didn’t think I’d have much luck. From the sounds of it, Pasha was already trying very hard, but Perak’s got a donkey line too. I opened the door into the pain room, to find the pair of them glaring at each other.



Pasha looked like shit. His eyes seemed sunken, his face more monkey-like than ever with a shrivelled look around his mouth as though he’d just bitten a lemon. Perak didn’t seem much better – he looked like if he shut his eyes he’d fall asleep on his feet. As soon as they saw me, they stopped glaring at each other and started glaring at me instead. Not much of an improvement.



“What are you doing here?” Perak asked, the glare dissolving into a worried frown. “You’re supposed to be resting.”



“Hopefully he’s come to knock some sense into you,” Pasha muttered. “Rojan, will you tell your brother we need to use the damned pulse machine, the shield thing? Jake – she’s… I told her not to go, told her to keep out of the tunnels, as far from Dench as she could. We have to use the machine. There’s no other way.”



“I can’t let you!” Perak’s face seemed to crack at that. “Look, Lise doesn’t know what will happen to the mage that tries it. There’s a good chance it’ll take everything he’s got and more. I need you. Mahala needs you, every last one of you. Especially you, Pasha, until Rojan recovers. You two are the only ones who can put anywhere near enough power into the generator. It’s only been two days without Rojan, and look at you, you’re in almost as bad shape as he is; we’ve had to shut three factories down and the heating’s gone in some places. Without power we’re sunk, and you know it.”



“But Jake – what else can we do? Because we’re fucking well going to do something. Besides, all the men that have died so far – we could stop it. Stop the Storad right in their tracks, stop them bringing in more men, more machines. Cut the ones already here off from those on their way. Then we’d have a chance. Rojan, tell him.”



I was starting to wish I’d stayed in bed. I sat on the pain rig and scrubbed my good hand over my face. Why was it that the further I ran from responsibility, the more it dropped in my lap?



“Look, why don’t you tell me everything first?”



So they did, and at least they’d stopped shouting. But the pinch on Perak’s face when he told me how the Storad had used their flame machines, had burned so many of his guards and Specials down by the tunnels and where they’d tried to defend the gate, burned them like kindling, the clench of Pasha’s jaw as he told me how he’d heard Jake in his head when the tunnel collapsed behind her, I’d almost have rather had the shouts.



“And the machines coming in through the pass,” Perak said. “They’re slow, but the men with them aren’t. They’re coming on ahead. Be here by morning, I should think. They’ve already got twice as many men here as we have guards and Specials left. More, perhaps. When the reinforcements arrive, we’ll be hopelessly outnumbered. I’m not sure we can even man the gates properly, let alone keep them out of the tunnels if they manage to get through. The machine you twisted – the first one – they’re busy trying to repair it, and when they do they’ll have those gates down and there’ll be almost nothing left to do.”



“What about guns? How many have we got? Things to fling over the wall, I’m sure we’ve got plenty to give them pause. There must be something.” Because I had an idea, but I didn’t think either of them was going to like it much. “We could unblock one of the other tunnels?”



“No good,” Pasha muttered. “Dench has got his men spread out and looking – we’re pretty sure he’s found the entrances to at least two, and they might be blocked but the Storad have come prepared. They cracked those two tunnels, collapsed them, who says they won’t manage to get in this time? If they get through, we’re done for – once the Storad are in the ’Pit there’s no way to stop them spreading out, no place to really hole them up, stop them. We’ve got nowhere near enough men to fight both in the ’Pit and at the gates. And if Dench can’t get through, he’ll probably try to crack those like he did the others, and if he cracks enough maybe there won’t be a city left. We’re screwed – unless we use the pulse machine.”