Mike Wild - Engines of the Apocalypse

"Now?" Slowhand asked.

"Now." Kali said.

The two of them turned and began to run like the hells, the engine demolishing trees, boulders, everything behind them, and still coming. The pair snatched glances over their shoulders and wished they hadn't, as it was beginning to look as if they had turned to run just a little too late.

The engine, seemingly unstoppable, continued to tear up the ground as it advanced, creating a solid tsunami of soil, rock and shredded vegetation. It would not, both of them reflected, be a very nice way to go.

The first ripples of soil and debris nudged at their ankles.

They looked at each other, and gulped.

Then Katherine Makennon was standing before them and the Anointed Lord was not alone. A group of ten mages, who had presumably teleported in to be by her side when they had witnessed the arrival and demise of the Engines, stood to either side of her. Makennon gestured to them and, as one, they raised their arms, releasing visible pulses of energy over Kali and Slowhand's heads, designed to slow the rampaging Engine down.

The strain was written on their faces. Veins pulsed beneath their flesh. From the noses of one or two blood began to trickle, and then pour.

The Engine began to slow. Gradually, the sounds of destruction from behind Kali and Slowhand quietened. And then it was over, the two of them rather embarrassingly pushed right in front of Makennon on the crest of a final, slow wave of soil.

"Thanks," Kali said, after a moment.

The Anointed Lord regarded her. The cloak she wore to restore her dignity had, it seemed, been 'donated' by the mayor of Gargas, who stood shivering in his britches behind her.

"I think that makes us even," Katherine Makennon said. Her tone made it clear that there would be no discussion as to what had happened. Ever .

Kali nodded. As she did, Freel emerged from the undergrowth and stood by Makennon's side. He snapped his fingers at those mages who weren't holding handkerchiefs to their noses, and they began to weave the threads. After a few seconds, the air before Makennon and Freel parted into a rift through which Kali glimpsed a view of Makennon's inner sanctum back at Scholten Cathedral. The rift hovered a couple of feet off the ground but, in an ostentatious touch presumably designed to ease Makennon's passage, a small flight of steps formed so that she could reach it.

As if they were departing after a simple day in the countryside, Makennon's retinue filed through one by one, until only the Anointed Lord and Freel were left. Then it was Freel's turn. At first it seemed that Jenna's husband was going to leave without a goodbye but he paused, one foot on the steps, and turned to Slowhand.

"I'll remember this," he said.

Slowhand nodded and, with a bow to Kali, Freel was gone.

Makennon stepped up to the threshold of the portal. Like Freel it seemed that she, too, was going to depart without another word but then she turned to Kali and beckoned her to her side.

"That girl in the Chapel. Who was she?"

"Her name," Kali said, "was Gabriella DeZantez."

"DeZantez… DeZantez," Makennon repeated as if she were dredging the name up from some dark and forgotten depth. "Ah, yes."

Then Makennon — and the portal — were gone.

"Well, they could have offered us a lift," Slowhand said. But the only response he got from Kali was a crashing of the undergrowth. "Hooper? Hooper?"

Kali was storming away from the necropolis as fast as she could go. Slowhand hurried to catch up.

"Farking woman!" Kali cursed.

"Hooper, I'm not sure you should be storming through the forest like this."

"No? You know any better way to get the hells out of the pitsing place?"

"Hooper, what I mean is slow down , or you'll bring every freak and monstrosity within a league's radius down on us!"

"Bring 'em on."

"Don't be stupid."

"I said, fark 'em, Slowhand!"

The archer pulled a face, grabbed her by the shoulders with his good arm, and turned her around. "Hey," he shouted. "Hey!"

Kali wrenched herself out of his grip, turned in a frustrated circle, not knowing what to do with herself, and finally kicked a nearby tree trunk. Something with wings that flapped like wet cloth took to the sky but Kali didn't care, her breathing fast and hard.

"Hooper," Slowhand gasped, "if you don't stop crashing around you're going to get us both killed."

Kali bent and ran the back of her hand across her mouth, speaking breathlessly. "Leave it alone, Liam."

"I can't do that. Because this isn't about Makennon, is it?" Slowhand challenged. "It's about Gabriella."

Kali shot him a look, found his firm but concerned blue eyes holding her gaze, and gradually brought her breathing under control. The archer was only partly right, but right enough. It was about Gabriella, yes, but about Makennon, too — the way the woman had swanned off just now. Pits of Kerberos, she didn't want any gratitude herself — gods knew, she hoped she wasn't that petty — but she did want some kind of acknowledgement for the people who had died to win her the freedom to go home. Not only Gabriella DeZantez but those many who had died at the hands of the juggennath or in their subsequent flight from it. Still, it was Gabriella that stuck in her mind, and what stuck more than anything were Makennon's words about her.

Who was she?

Who was she?

Kali pulled away from Slowhand and continued, with him trailing behind. The pair managed to negotiate a couple of leagues without incident, but found themselves freezing at a sudden thrashing from the bush beside them. Kali drew her gutting knife, ready to wield against whatever warped denizen of the forest had them in its sights. Nothing came at them though, and, after a few seconds, Kali pulled the undergrowth aside.

The source of the thrashing was a warped denizen all right, but not the kind that she or Slowhand had expected.

Querilous Fitch lay in a ditch beneath them, having presumably landed here after he had been struck by the juggennath. The extent of his injuries were plain to see.

Fitch saw Slowhand and the broken body of the psychic manipulator spasmed in the ditch, hands desperately trying to rise and wield some kind of magic, offensive or defensive, but his arms simply flapped by his sides ineffectually.

"That old problem again, Fitch?" Slowhand growled. "You really ought to see a doctor about that."

The archer moved in and took Fitch by the neck, staring him in the eyes as he tightened his grip.

"Liam, don't kill him," Kali said.

"What?"

"I'm asking you not to kill him. He has information that I need."

"What the hells do you mean, he has information that you need?"

Kali hesitated. "Something… well, I don't know if it's important, but it might be."

"Oh, really," Slowhand hissed without loosening his grip. Fitch was struggling, turning blue, his tongue bloating between twisted lips. "Hooper, this guy was responsible for the death of my sister and in case you hadn't noticed has tried to kill me twice, both times without compunction or hesitation, and frankly I don't want him running around anymore. You tell me — what could be more important than that?"

"I — " Kali began, and stopped.

She rocked back and forth on her heels, torn. Share this with someone , Gabriella had said. Don't bear it alone . But how could she burden her sometime lover with the knowledge that the world he knew — and all of the beds and women in it — might soon be coming to an end? The answer was, she couldn't — at least until Slowhand, with a sigh, suddenly released his grip on Fitch, dropping his choking victim back into the bottom of the ditch, and turned to face her, more concerned than she had ever seen him.