Younger lads were sent scampering over walkways to see what they could find, who was where, and whether the who had any weapons. Others were sent under Guinto’s direction to gather who they could, fire them up with his Goddess talk perhaps, get them out of their homes and fighting, as they always had, only this time for… maybe for nothing. Then again, Under always seemed to fight for something and end with nothing.
I was glad to leave them to it because now I was no more or less use to them than any other man with a gun in his hand. All I had going for me was a pulse pistol I daren’t use unless I felt like going the way Pasha had, and a life-long, deep-seated hatred of the world and pretty much everything in it. Hatred and cynicism had got me a long way, but I was tired now. More tired than I could ever recall, and without even the luxury of loathing the Goddess for dumping all this on us from a great height. It wasn’t her that had done it, and my hate seemed to have run dry.
It wasn’t hard to tell where the Storad had got to – a dark mass on the Spine, moving confidently, but not so quickly that they weren’t doing their best to rout anyone to either side. No one seemed to be stopping them. Maybe not much point, if Allit was right. Maybe part of Perak’s plan to draw them in. I hoped so. We could see the mangled mess of the gates from here too, just, but the pass, the road and what was coming along it were mostly hidden by Heights and rendered dim in any case by the weather.
I turned to Allit and didn’t even need to ask.
“A day, at most, before the really big machines get here,” he said. “I can’t – I think I can see what they’re for. I wish Pasha was here so I could show you.”
“So do I,” I said, though the picture of them was indelibly printed in my brain, had haunted what little sleep I’d had since Pasha had shown them to me. Machines with teeth and claws. Not guns… more like animals designed to pull things to bits. Maybe pull a city to bits. Or people. I hoped like hell that Perak’s plan, whatever it was, worked. It had better, because I was fresh out of ideas and didn’t have a clue what good this rising was going to do, what I could do. Not a damned, Goddess-fucked clue.
I could feel myself sinking then, weighed under the grey of the clouds, under the song of the black, ever calling, ever tempting me. I’d driven it back a for a while as we’d fought in the square, as we’d carved our way to here, but now it was back. It lurked behind my eyes, in the ever-present throb of my screwed hand, coated my mouth when I went to speak.
You could end this. Right now. If you had the guts you were born with, you could blast it all to the moon, lay this city bare, let the sun in Under. If you had the guts. Come on in, Rojan, where it’s warm and you never need fear again. Just one little thing, and we’ll be together. Always.
My vision had drawn down to a cold hard point, a glimpse of light in darkness, and my hand moved on its own, no thought of mine telling it to bunch, to grind the fractured bones together. Just a little pain and it could all be gone.
The grip on my arm, the voice next to me, jolted me out of it so hard I leapt back and smacked into a wall, heart shuddering at how close I’d been. Dendal was right – right then, the way I was, it would only take one little spell and I’d be lost. And still I was tempted.
“Rojan?”
The voice sent it shrieking behind me, lost in the whirl of grey daylight coming in the windows that burned my eyes. Erlat – I never heard the black at Erlat’s. My mind grabbed for that thought, for the voice, willed her to speak again so I could hold on.
“Dendal sent me. He said – Are you all right? Rojan?”
A smooth voice, calming, serene like nothing could touch her. Bollocks, of course, because she’d known worse than I ever would, but you’d never know it to hear her speak. Erlat was always strong. Not like Jake, not whirling with swords and anger yet brittle as glass none the less, just strong inside, like a smooth and wickedly sharp blade hidden under a beautiful scabbard.
“I’m all right,” I managed, and found to my surprise that I was. Or about as all right as I could be under the circumstances. I stood up straight and tried to look like I wasn’t about to keel over or go batshit. “Where’s Jake?”
Erlat stepped back a pace and turned away to answer, an oddly taut undercurrent to her voice. “Back where she always used to be. Trying to get herself killed, but too proud to let anyone beat her.”
I pulled Erlat gently round to look at me, expecting to find her crying, but she was stronger than that, stronger than me because I wanted to cry. “Because Pasha’s gone? And it’s all my fault, all of it. I started this whole hot mess, I screwed with what worked, and that action led straight to this, and it should have been me on that stupid machine, right?”