LXXX
THE WAR FOR CATEN RAGES AROUND US BENEATH AN enveloping night sky, stars shrouded by smoke and drifting grit.
The dust-choked streets are lit now only either by torches carried by mobs, or the sporadic fires illuminating the devastation of the Will shells that lit them.
Everything is cast in shadows and silhouette against deep, angry reds.
Screams and clashing shouts echo. Sometimes distant.
Sometimes so close and unexpected that we are forced to take cover.
Eidhin and I stagger on, and fight, and stagger on some more.
I keep my metal mask on and arm half formed, barely enough pieces to complete the illusion and still be able to walk.
We hide from the larger companies of both sides, but step in wherever we find Octavii and Septimii being hunted by individual legionnaires.
Show ourselves to anyone who isn't a threat, too.
Each time I pretend I don't feel the grinding ache of what I'm doing to my body, or the cold rage that drives me, or any of the grief that I keep buried firmly beneath it all, and stand tall, and tell all who will listen to spread the word that Carnifex is fighting for them.
Some curse me fearfully for what I have brought upon the city. Far fewer than I expect, though.
In between, we rest, and I send my imbued shards high into the air as a signal to Ka, and as we apprehensively wait I explain the missing pieces of my life to my friend.
I don't know how long it's been since we started.
Hours? Diago, at least, is being treated back at Domus Telimus, a brief stop and a dismayed Kadmos behind us.
And I sent multiple messages warning Tertius Ericius of my bad information, though I have no idea whether any of them reached him before the first Will shells started to fall in the Forum.
"What happens if this other man—Ostius—finds us first?" Eidhin pants at one point as we stumble to a seat in a darkened alley, snatching a few precious moments of rest after another skirmish.
He's doing the bulk of the fighting. My metal blades are effective at range, but my lack of true mobility means I have to hang back and simply assist him most of the time.
"He won't." I tear another strip of cloth and bind the new wound on his leg. Shallow, but bleeding too much to ignore. "I destroyed the amulet he was using to track me."
"The one he gave you for protection?"
"That's the one."
Eidhin takes a breath to say something, then looks at me, then just lets it out again. "I suppose it would be inconvenient if he tried to kill Ka while you were trying to negotiate with him," he concedes with an exasperated mutter.
We fight on. At one point we stray too close to the front lines and suddenly there is a shifting in the air, a sweeping away of smoke and then a Transvect is screaming above us, its base lit orange by Caten's flames.
Sextii leap, slamming into the ground around us, eyes dark, breaking cobblestone with their impacts.
We fling ourselves for the shadows of the nearest alley, unseen by the detachment who are already sprinting along the rubble-strewn street toward their target.
And then seconds later, an explosion from the sky.
The Transvect plummets; there is a thundering, shattering roar not more than a few streets away.
Dust is shoved in a wave away from the crash.
Glass shatters. Through hands shielding faces, we see a plume of fire unfolding toward the heavens as the rest of the Will shells on board go up.
We stumble away. I've lost my sense of where we are, but Eidhin estimates the impact was close to the Forum.
I think of my remaining friends, and hope they are far from here.
Finally, though, it is too much. Even with Kadmos's tea and my Will and fear and desperation all pulsing through me, my body cannot take anymore. I am becoming sluggish and I can see that Eidhin, stoic though he is, is the same.
"We can rest here. Just for a while." We're back in Alta Semita, I think. Hard to know; streets and buildings all look the same once they're in pieces. "That house doesn't look like it's going to fall down."
Eidhin barely grunts his affirmation, and we limp to the structure.
Much of the back half is gone and we clamber over stone rather than use the door, but enough of the facade remains that it should hide us from the view of any passersby.
I collapse to the ground, back against the wall.
Eidhin crouches in front of me. Somehow, still able to stand.
"You are getting slow. Even with those blades," he says abruptly. "You should rest."
I stare at his eyes, red-rimmed from exhaustion, and laugh softly. "Sure."
He doesn't smile. "You have two broken legs, Vis. And that brace' you are using to walk is making you bleed everywhere." I glance down, surprised to find he's right; there are trails of blood all the way down my legs, and the base of my torn and dirtied toga is soaked in red.
"I know you are a Quintus, and angry, and whatever your Dispensator made you might be dulling the pain, but your body will not last like this. It cannot. So rest, just for a few minutes, and I will keep watch. Rest, or I will make you rest."
I scowl at him, but now I've sat down it feels impossible to get back up again straight away. "Fine. But I'm not going to sleep. I'll raise the signal again."
I send my metal shards high into the air, well above the rooftops. Carefully form them into the only meaningful shape I can think to make. An inverted Hierarchy symbol, three lines descending into a single point.
Eidhin peers upward, looking a mixture of impressed and worried. "You're sure he will be able to see them?"
"They're imbued. If he's like me, and anywhere close by, it'll catch his attention." Alone, the Will in each shard wouldn't be enough. Arranged together as they are, though, they pulse in my mind, clear against the smoky night.
A massive arrow in the sky, pointed directly down at us.
"Are they going to fall on top of us if you lose concentration?" Eidhin gazes upward worriedly.
"Maybe. Probably not. Don't think so," I reply hazily. My pounding heart is easing. No immediate danger, and as the fear departs it leaves only exhaustion in its wake.
Unwillingly, I close my eyes.
"FOR A MAN NOT SLEEPING, YOU ARE NOT VERY ALERT."
I start and twist awake at the gruff voice in my ear. "Rotting gods." I sit up, repressing a groan at the action. "I was thinking."
"Ah. Practicing. This is good." He pats me on the shoulder. "How are you feeling?"
I consider. "Better." Not a lie, insomuch as I don't feel as close to dying as I did when I closed my eyes. I check the pulsing symbol high above us. Still hovering where I left it. "How long?"
"A half hour."
Too long. Not long enough. I take in Eidhin's spent visage. "Your turn."
"I don't need—"
"Your turn." I gesture upward. "It's a big city. If he's looking for me, we need to give him time to get close enough to see it. I can manage."
"Not if you can't walk and don't have a weapon," Eidhin observes.
I sigh, hating the logic, but he's right. Command the hovering pieces to return, to form the braces around my legs again. The fiction of my arm. My mask. None of it's comfortable, but once set it will stay in place. Better to do it now than be forced to under pressure.
We sit mutely for a while, and though I can see Eidhin's eyes droop more than once, he doesn't drift off the way I did.
"What made you change your mind?" The question comes abruptly, out almost before I realise I'm asking it. I smile weakly. "It sure as all hells wasn't this plan."
"That, I promise you, is true." Eidhin stirs.
Massages his shoulder, which took a hit from a Sextus earlier.
"No. The measure of a man is not whether he does the wrong thing. It is whether he accepts that he has. When you told me the truth—showed me that mask …" He sighs heavily.
"I was angry. I still am. But you were right. About crossing lines because we feel forced to. Perhaps we will save my people from Redivius, perhaps we will not—but if I had pressed on, if I had stayed trapped, it would have eventually been the latter." He frowns at the ground.
Speaks slowly. "But Vis? It was also because you came. You came on two broken legs, and you asked. You would not have forced me to stop, but you were willing to strip yourself bare to save me. You reminded me that we are not friends. You are my brother. My kin. To abandon you to the right and narrow path …"
He trails off. Silence, and then he drags himself to his feet. Walks over slowly and offers his hand to pull me up. "If we are staying here longer, we should try and find a position with a better view."
I let him haul me to my feet and then wrap him in a fierce embrace before he can resist. Impossible to describe what his words mean to me.
He grunts. Allows it, then pulls away. "It is still an awful plan," he growls.
I cough a laugh, and we start to pick our way out again across the rubble.
I round the broken wall and immediately shrink back, motioning urgently to stay quiet. Someone is standing in the street. Visible as little more than a silhouette.
Watching the house.
"Carnifex." The voice rings out into the black.
I glance back at Eidhin, who motions that he's going to circle around the other way. I nod affirmation, steel myself and emerge at a safe distance. "Who are you?"
"The one for whom you have been calling." The man speaks in crisp, formal Vetusian, and it takes me a moment to recognise and translate it.
I stare. Not saying anything, thinking furiously. It's hard to make out features but the silhouette is unsettlingly still.
No doubting who he's saying he is, though.