Joseph Lewis - Wren the Fox Witch

Wren stood very still in the half-light of the underground chamber. Two of their torches had gone out and no one had relit them. Everyone stood or sat in silence gazing up at the black ceiling, listening.

The bombs thumped and thudded, and tiny trickles of dust fell on the silent clerks and servants and soldiers.

Boom, boom-boom… boom.

Wren’s fox ears twitched with each reverberation as she tried to guess exactly where the bombs were falling.

They’re not falling on top of us, that’s for sure.

As the minutes passed, the detonations grew fainter by degrees until the floor stopped shuddering and the inkwells stopped clinking and even Wren herself had trouble hearing the deep vibrations in the earth.

“They’re moving away,” she said softly.

Tycho nodded. “But there are three of them out there. They might pass over the city one by one. The next one might be coming.”

“Unless Vlad’s plan worked,” Wren said. “What if they reached Stamballa and managed to distract the other two airships? Maybe only one of them is over Constantia.”

“I have little faith in the prince at this point,” Salvator said. He stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “Still, it may be that the airships were ordered to attack different targets. One to bomb the palace. The others to attack the bridges or harbors.”

“Maybe.” The major turned away and caught the attention of a young soldier standing near one of the extinguished torches. “Corporal, I want you to run up and take a quick look around outside. Just get a glimpse of where the airships are and which way they’re going, and come back. Understood?”

The young man nodded and jogged out through the main doors.

“I should go too,” Wren said.

“Just wait a moment. Let’s see what the corporal finds,” Tycho said. “If there’s trouble out there, we could find ourselves down here for a very long time. And to be blunt, you’re the strongest weapon we have to protect the Duchess. So if you need aether to protect her, then I want to keep you down here near the aether.”

Wren pouted.

Well, he did say I’m the strongest one down here. I suppose I can’t be too upset with him.

It took several minutes for the corporal to cross back through the length of the Sunken Palace, climb the long stair to the surface, and scout the area, and then come back to report. When he did jog back in through the doors, he was sweating and breathing hard.

“All clear, sir,” he said breathlessly. “There’s only one airship on our side of the Strait, and it’s not dropping bombs anymore. It’s moving north along the waterfront at the moment. The other two airships are out over the water. One of the men upstairs thinks they might be there to bomb our ships, eventually.”

“Good, thank you.” Tycho dismissed the young soldier and turned back to Wren. “There. Safe as houses, so to speak.”

The major took a few minutes to speak with the Duchess and arranged for most of the soldiers to remain down in the palace with Lady Nerissa and her staff while Tycho ventured out with a handful of guards and Wren. Salvator sat in his chair breathing hard, and at one point he announced that he would remain at the Duchess’s side to ensure her safety. The Duchess replied with a thin smile.

The journey back through the cells and cisterns was dark and dank, and seemed to go on forever, but eventually Wren and Tycho reached the stairs, and those seems to go on forever as well. Finally they emerged from the small mausoleum and stepped out onto the brown lawn of the empty estate and looked up.

Smoke filled the eastern sky. Some of it rose from within the walls of the Palace of Constantine, but even more seemed to be rising from the far shores of Stamballa. The bright glare of the afternoon sky hurt her eyes and she slipped her blue glasses onto her nose, and looked again. And there, in the distance, she saw the tiny flickers of yellow and red where the homes of the Turks were burning.

“The palace.” Tycho’s voice fell with exhaustion and misery.

Wren looked again at the base of the smoke and saw the shattered edges of the walls and the buildings just barely visible in the distance. Higher and to her left, she saw the lone airship hovering above another neighborhood farther north. But the tiny gray and white houses and shops along the shore appeared to be intact, as did the tiny white fishing boats bobbing along the waterfront.

“I suppose there’s no point in going back to look right now,” Tycho said. “It’ll be just as broken and ruined tomorrow as it is today. The bastards. The Palace of Constantine is fifteen centuries old… or it was. At least we got everyone out in time. At least no one was hurt.”

Wren nodded. “Do you know where everyone else went?”

“No, there wasn’t time to plan anything. We just sent out the word to move as far from the water as possible. Why?” Tycho smiled a little. “Were you hoping to round up the kitchen staff to have a little hot lunch?”

“No, I was just wondering where they took Yaga. I wanted to check on her, if I could.” She watched the playful glint in his eye fade. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just… She was still in the tower, wasn’t she?”

Wren nodded. “Sleeping. But the maids would have gotten her, wouldn’t they?”

Tycho set his jaw for a moment, and then said, “I really can’t say. In all that confusion, in all that rush and chaos, I really don’t know if anyone would have remembered to go get her. I didn’t give any instructions about her, and I doubt that any of the servants would have gone looking for Yaga on their own. I don’t know that for certain, but I doubt it.”

Wren felt her face tightening up as she pressed her lips together and looked away. She wasn’t even sure what she was feeling. Regret? Anger? Fear? She crossed her arms over her belly, and with each hand felt the many silver bracelets on her wrists. “I left her there, defenseless, asleep. And I didn’t think…”

“Well, even if she was caught in the bombing, she is immortal after all,” Tycho said quietly. “She can survive anything, can’t she?”

Wren nodded slowly. “She’s alive. But she’s still an old woman. If something fell on her, if she’s buried in the rubble, if she’s in pain, then that’s exactly where she’ll stay until someone finds her.” Wren started walking across the lawn.

“Wait!” Tycho ran after her, and his four guards ran after him.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Wren said. “You have duties here, I know that. But this is something I have to do.”

Why? Why is it something I have to do? I don’t owe Yaga anything. She put me through hell. She nearly killed me.

But she’s also just like me.

And now she’s all alone.

Tycho fell into step beside her, and she slowed a little to let him keep pace with her, and the other Hellans followed closed behind them. They hurried up the wide empty avenue behind the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, with its marvelous golden domes which appeared to have survived the bombing unscathed, and they soon came to the palace gates and entered the First Courtyard.

The bombing had begun to their right, punching huge black holes in the green park to the southeast of the palace, but then the bombs had fallen on the buildings as they worked north and west. The Church of Saint Irene had lost most of its north wall, and half of its roof. The stables along the eastern side of the Second Courtyard had been reduced to gravel and splinters, except for the last three stalls, which remained miraculously intact. The doors and columns of the portico of the Chamber of Petitions lay in shattered pieces all across the courtyard, and much of the building itself was burning, and every few minutes something inside it would moan and growl and crash. And on the far side of the courtyard, the Tower of Justice lay on its side, smashed into dozens of large chunks of masonry and stone like a broken finger pointing to the south.