Chapel of Chains Part 7
Carousing in the Cordon
Previously, Tiber Klepacki pulled the feat of three military objectives at once: find and relieve the last century of hobgoblins, capture the Russet Kites, and eliminate the Tijakim horde under the city. In the process, he captured a witch famous in Lidovica: Runt Scarlet.
At night the dust still coughed by the underworks caught the firelights, like off-color rainclouds none wanted to step into. Tiber and his core band returned from processing the captured Russet Kites, thirty-three in all; in addition to the girl with the cat and Runt Sarlatova, four other casters required special accommodation to deter shenanigans.
During the parade of captured from the foot of the terrace-wall to the main square of the skydocks district--and by extension the Cordon--he noticed his Lidovicans were rough with the prisoners. He ordered the culprits to fall out and ordered a few Arcadians take their place, and their impartiality with the mercenaries from back home spread to the rest of the guards.
Oddly enough, none of the prisoners who had their senses tried to resist. He mused why, and figured it was the realization they were captured in the middle of a warzone--the same reason prisoners tend to be accommodating of their captors on ships at sea or in the sky.
He dismissed the speculation upon stepping into the main square of the skydocks district and by extension of the Cordon. He also dismissed his ersatz subordinates who rejoined their lot, after a few congratulations for his promotion and success. Tiber sighed as he sat on the edge of the fountain in the middle, lighting up a roll.
Then stood right the hell back up when he remembered his new rank and the optical responsibilities. Fucking commission! "Doubt anyone'll whale-eye you for taking a seat, kiddo," he heard the Old Bird behind him. Tiber responded by audibly popping his back as he stood. The Bird conceded the point while Praecantrix Lau wretched slightly at the sound.
“Sorry you missed the party,” he told the Brannoch, who shrugged with a comment about some of the ragers he threw way-back-when.
“So you found Scarlet again?” asked Lau.
“You could say she practically fell into my lap.” He took a drag and cocked his head to her. “…and now she’s become part of a deal to learn who’s behind the attack. I wanted to ask if you two would be willing to watch her while you recover.” The bird let out a caustic chuckle and Tiber acknowledged his implicit yes with a sideways nod.
“If my brother lets me, he calls the shots,” Lau replied. Odd thing for an adult to say, but perhaps their mores were quite different.
“Who’s your brother?” asked Tiber while eyeing the Bran eyeing something behind him. Then he froze: a tap on his shoulder and a sudden looming sense of finality.
The Primus, avatar of the nobility of war, leering devil of metal and plates, stood behind him.
"MARSHAL LAU, PRIMUS," bowed the avatar. "My sister, Praecantrix Maritime Lau. Our father is Manjiro Lau, Lord of Clan Lau and Prefect of the Infernal Order of the Tetsubo.” More than just an accident of pronunciation. The days they were born, old Manjiro gave his little bundles of joy puns for names.
"Wait. You're Maritime Law, your brother is Marshal Law." Both gave a thumbs-up that faded as Tiber's sight went out of focus. Their names were puns--on the Arcadian languages. How many of these freaks could there be? He paled, afraid to ask about a Common, an Admiralty, a Military--the ‘Family’ was well and truly taken care of by the whole unit, right? Unless there was an especially fertile cousin--and gods above help them all, a Shillelagh. He came back to terra firma when the Brannoch flicked his ear.
The figure before Tiber was an exotic spirit-devil the color of a cold stormy beach. Grey lacquered metal connected with golden or brazen silk cords and a leering metal face, over clothes an oceanside slate blue. The Primus took Tiber's shoulders. "Thanks for protecting my sister," he spoke with a smiling pitch under the devil-mask. "We were stuck using semaphore and candles to communicate with the Lady since the attack began, so I'm getting caught up with what happened. Apparently the battle's been a rager," he said, fiddling with the mask as the bran whistled, "and your name keeps on coming up. How long have you led?” He hooked the mask on his belt and doffed a hood-like helmet, wearing a black bandanna over his bald pate.
Tiber had to think--really muscle past exhausted dissociation--the siege seemed like an eternity and everything before it felt like an empty void. “Three days,” eliciting one of the odd joshing grimace-smiles common of hobgoblins.
“The Haergothan race is safe in capable hands!”
"Honestly, she saved herself for the most part, me and my boys just found her in the middle of a particularly bad skirmish. Joker and Shorty… well, Tumlegk and Shigegn can verify that."
Marshal had soft eyes and a crooked smile; Tiber wanted to ask how his jaw was broken—if in fact—but knew better than to ask. Years of discipline wore away any superfluous expression to his champagne eyes, grim compliments of the armor—expressing a soul of martial aggression alloyed with self-control. "They told me. Everything. Apparently Maritime found some ancient of yours who followed her and two others out of the undercity. Tumlegk was impressed; I'd like to lay eyes on this thing." Tiber remembered the visions it showed him as he dragged his roll.
"It saved pretty much all of us at one point or another, including Miss Maritime. But Arc Royal, the church of Saint Irinia, and Thelos civilization are quite concluded on the matter."
"You didn't list yourself in that," rejoined the Primus, warranting a smack on the arm from the Praecantrix. Apparently their social mores allowed horseplay in front of subordinates--he returned it and--oh, hey, Maritime had a good arm-tie.
Aside from sharing the same blunt point in their ears as orcs, Hob'ghobli-kha'an (what about it was so hard to pronounce?) were as different from the other hominid races and they were from one another. Subtle (and a few not-so-subtle) skoshes differentiated Marshal and Maritime from, say, he and Lady Bochra or Alizibet the cleric. Obvious was their grey skin and monochromatic eyes, the hairless pates. But their faces were a skosh flat, strong noses and jaws a skosh like angled fortress turrets. Eyes spaced a skosh farther apart to gauge distances across wide steppe, shaped a skosh different to keep dust out. Bodies a skosh in favor of their cores to keep heat in long cold seasons. And the rose-eyed priestess among them passing by, the look she had for him a skosh wanton. Foreigners. Ugh.
Along came a quite large figure, slightly taller than Tiber himself and about the height of Petr. Armor black with soot, the last he saw it was in Lady Bochra's office. Her leather load-bearing gear flung over one shoulder, she threw him a bottle. "Your men found a large crate of it, asked me to pass one on." They exchanged salutes, Tiber noticing a strong scent of acrid vegetable matter.
Kbac, the label said. "Praise argent Saint Irinia," he said, unstoppering the bottle and pulling half of it. Bochra asked what it was. "Sweet drinkable bread," to her eye-roll, the meaning he caught. "No Ma'am, it's not like Arcadian stout. There's hardly any alcohol. It's fermented from rye bread," giving her the bottle. "And just as nourishing." She had no reaction to the taste; the state of her mind telegraphed by the flecks of blood he noticed on her gauntlets' knuckles.
Abigail assumed KBAC was an acronym, along with about half of all other Niyarodan vocabulary, for Caustic, Violently-Alkaline SSSsss. (fucking Niyarodan languages.)
"Have your men distribute it tonight and drink. You're going to need the grains for tomorrow morning," her nodding at the massive triangular void blotting out the night sky: the Skydock. "The explosions underground had the effect I wanted. I was able to reconnoiter with a few others and make sure their little spies won't come back soon. You and the Primus are supporting me as I lead the push to the top tomorrow morning, we need the upper skydocks for the barges to safely land." Tiber nodded.
The skybarges were slow craft. Thunder's Vale had a small fleet of them to offset aerial commerce when every lowercase skydock on the Uppercase Skydock was 'skydoccupied.' (fucking Arcadian tongues.)
Currently they were stuck over the city, loaded with elite heavy infantry--many of them actual Amort nobles--from when the start of the siege looked like just mass riots for which they were loaded-up to be quickly deployed. The Tijakim kept their truly talented casters--actual wizards, gifted priests, and demons who could will hellfire and lighting into existence--hidden for most of the fighting to deny any landing zones, even for rappelling off the craft. And if that would not stop the men in the barges, demons were perfectly willing to attract the attention of the monoliths and destroy the craft in the crossfire. Rumors said huge monsters and more armies of Tijaks lurked outside the city, meaning the men in the barges were marooned for nine days with a great view of the destruction they were impotent to stop. "What do you need of us?"
"I need Maritime to stop strangling her brother," Bochra looked back and Tiber witnessed fighting spectated by, among others, Joker, Shorty, Patch, and the rose-eyed girl. Maritime had one hand on Marshal's collar and another on his neck and growled something about a tea kettle. Tiber offered to break it up, but he must have been an outsider to an ongoing acquaintance since Abigail stayed him. "…Maybe no, the knucklehead probably earned it."
"Er, which knucklehead earned what?"
She shrugged pleasantly as she unfolded a well-notated diagram of the Skydock. "Yes."
FINALLY SOME PEACE. Alizibet the cleric found him a small stone room in the Cathedral to do this. He guessed it was a monk's cell at one point, later someplace for initiates to study in peace, given the stone counter built into the wall under the lantern-hook. He closed the lower-half of the shutter on the knee-to-ceiling arrow slit in the light of a candle nestled in a pocket lantern he had since kin-knew-when, unrolled a padded officer's bedroll he had since kin-knew-when, sat crosslegged. A weary sigh drifted between his hands as he rand his palms over a sore beak, fingers through feathers on a tired face; almost in prayer. A match to an amaro-flavored cigarelle, a cork off a bottle of the stuff itself. A taste of the warmer north, the Nouveans know how to sin. Kin above, how his whole body hurt. It always did, unless he was practicing the ultimate trade.
He tilted his head back. Sore neck, so too his shoulders, his flanks. Especially where the thresher demon got him in the ribs. Talking down the voice saying he could not do this anymore. That he was done. Another sigh, and a look down at a rolled parcel resting at his knees. He fished around inside a flax shirt, tried not to reminisce on the touch of a woman’s fingers in his chest feathers, found the locket. It unfolded, four panels, six portraits, all long dead. His hands got to work on the wrapped bundle, almost on their own, while he spoke to the guns.
Firearms. Impossible to merely make them, to merely fire them. You had to do the right stuff--say the right stuff--think the right stuff--every step of the way, from boring an ingot of folded metal to firing--even grinding powder, casting bullets, knapping flint. Otherwise you risked disaster. He dragged on the little roll, pulled from the bottle. Yes, those were part of it; the superstitious stuff of a gunner. And the right stuff almost always differed between gunners. Kin above, he knew gunners for whom the right stuff inexplicably changed on their paths. He had stalked the path for so long he marveled it never changed for him. Nobody knew why guns demanded supplication, conversation, the right stuff needed increased if an objet d'art changed hands, and was the stuff of legends if the chain of custody was broken. Mythological fairy-bargain-logic shenanigans. That was why gunners were a rare lot, dedicated smiths and armorers rarer still, and every story of a found gun used was a tragedy. Because you never used a found gun.
He was a fan of cartridges, little brass numbers you could make whenever and rattle in your pockets for years. But that meant more incantations, supplications, etching the brass with promises and a whole lot of superstition. He preferred manual loading and powdering, and these guns were easier to maintain and make new parts for. Plus, the only place among the Arcadians to make brass cartridges was way the hells back outside Arc Royal City, and he understood those guys as not liking Craibhach.
While in Thunder's Vale he experimented with crossbows--unlike guns, anyone can use crossbows, of course--tinkering with how to give them magazines and repeating mechanisms. He took just such a prototype--solving the problem of pulling the arms and string with combustible fluid compressed to ignition--with him when he followed the Klepackis' kid down into the underworks, lost it, and saw the undead ancient using it with perfect skill. Maybe the old guy would have some insight to tell, but he had no hopes for the design.
Fifteen years he was in Arcadia, and the lion's share of that based in Thunder's Vale with visits to the other walled mainland enclaves and exclaves along the nebulous border with Sidonis, commonly called demon country. Left Greater Niyaroda after Lidovica set Nagorynaya on fire with an occupation and the fire spread back to Lidovica with a civil war, the other nations lighting up over old grievances and new ambitions. Kin, did it grieve him to see those boys in red. He had to check himself not to randomly ask forgiveness, not that they would have any context for his sins, commission or omission. He burned more leaf, drank more. Shuddered.
At least the Arcadians he'd unambiguously done right by. In the past decade-plus, the few officers and priests-militant who knew his reputation kept it to themselves, some even plying their circles for any niches they needed occupied by him. He leant his expertise, both direct and instructive, in the metastasizing centuries-long bush war with the Tijakim. His reputation evolved from a military advisor to a holy sage among soldiers, all the officers in the enclaves knew of the grouchy raven-man and deferred to his respectful wisdom, and raven iconography began flying around the ranks.
The guns in front of him were taken care of--at least materially. He wondered if the ruminations he always lost himself in afterwards were part of the right stuff, but he would have ruminated anyway if they were not, so it mattered not. He tilted his head back, beak like that damn Skydock Bochra and the rest were to toodle up tomorrow, cigarelle holding on for dear life in the corner of his mouth, hand dancing salsa with the bottle. Four pistols, two musketoons, a blunderbuss, and a longarm. Lot of promises to make to a lot of dead friends--and other inscrutable parties.
ARCADIA'S SHIVERING DAWN, cold and slight like a pearl-feathered woman naked in a frosted meadow, reached her arm into the cell through the open upper half of the arrow slit. The Old Bird fell asleep where he sat, cross-legged, arms in his lap, head bowed, every feather a mourning shroud. Inky black shoulders hunched, a frame built for much larger, younger muscles. Gimballed his head it in a fashion unsettling to most flatfaces, straightened his back. He felt young, and stood up with his legs alone, knees not an iota sore, setting the bundle of guns--practically nothing--on the counter along the wall. No pain at all, and he dropped the bedroll with sinking realization.
"Ah frak. Feeling this good and nowhere near a fight, we're about to be waist deep in trouble," he muttered, the light falling on one eye looking out the arrow slit. Socks, boots, blouse, armored coat, hat, baldric, box; all weapons hooked and slung. Trench knife, hatchet. Whatever in kin's names transpired outside, his role to play would be clear after getting a look at it all. The door to the cell was opposite the stairs down to the gaol where the captured Russet Kites were kept. The guard saluted.
"Aught to report, Sir. The prisoners seem to understand they're in a warzone."
"They're gonna have a lot more reason to keep calm, soldier," followed by a last pull from the bottle. Sir? "Shit's about to kick off, I can feel it. Tell your mates to get your contingencies ready. Last stand, go to ground, abscond. Stabigail's walking into a storm and I reckon we're destined for some rain too." The guard smiled at the challenge.
"So it's another Tuesday, Sir. We took the liberty of putting the prisoners' weapons and magical kit in a pile. If it got so bad they stopped being enemies." The Old Bird actually stopped, impressed. He tossed the guard the bottle with the last fingers of amaro before leaving.
"See you on the other side."
Before opening one of the front doors, he looked down the Cathedral, down the rows of disease, amputation, and misery. He was a brannoch, a Craibhach, of the oldest gods themselves, and like the corvids that resembled them, could see things the flatfaces could not. The eddies on the far end, the iridescence in the air itself circulating around the chapel doors behind the dais. There was Manjiro Lau's daughter Maritime, trying to save the umpteenth local waiting for treatment. Could she have seen the eddies with her mask down? Did anyone notice the light coming from under the chapel doors?
No matter, he thought exiting the Cathedral.