Tim Lebbon - Dawn

You don’t know Noreela, Lenora thought. But she would never say it.

And yet, Lenora’s own sword arm ached with the need to fight again. The village they had recently taken had offered nothing but bleating women and pleading men, and the children had died with a whimper. Perhaps it really will be this easy, she thought. And if so…what comes later?

Me, a voice said, softer than her own heartbeat.

Stay away, Lenora thought. Just for a while, please stay away.

“Do you know where they are?” Ducianne asked quietly.

Lenora shook her head. “They have their purposes,” she said. “The Mages’ time will come later.”

“When there’s nothing left of Noreela?”

“There’salways something of Noreela,” Lenora said, disturbed that Ducianne had verbalized her fears. And as she stood ready to order the march on Noreela City, she wondered whether she was only trying to convince herself.

THE KROTES BROKE camp and prepared for their journey to Noreela City. Those with flying machines took off, heading south to reconnoiter. Lenora ordered them not to land in the city until the ground force was visible from the walls and gates. The panic would be widespread then, the fear heavy, and a sudden assault from above would provide the distraction Lenora needed to drive her army through whatever outer defenses there might be.

What are we looking for here? Ducianne had asked.

Destroy the city, Lenora replied. It’s a symbol. We raze it to the ground and whatever backbone Noreela has left is snapped.

There was much banter between Krotes, pledges made and wagers placed, and Lenora rode amongst them to give encouragement. And she in turn took encouragement. Many of Ducianne’s Krotes were blooded from their victims in Long Marrakash, and they looked terrifying. Is it really going to be this easy? Lenora thought again. She ordered them to move out, and a thousand machines began their relentless march southward.

Lenora rode at the head of her army. She sat astride her machine and urged it on, faster and faster until she had to strap herself to its back to avoid being thrown. They emerged from the mouth of a large valley and entered an area of sparse woodland, most of the trees shedding their leaves now that sunlight was absent. Animals scattered before them, some escaping into holes or climbing trees, others being crushed beneath machine feet. The noise of the Krote advance was relentless: the pounding of metal, stone and timber feet, the gasping and grunting of machines drawing air or venting steam and other gases, the occasional shout of a warrior calling to a friend. The army was a storm front scoring across the ground, sweeping before it any pretense at normality or peace. Lenora shouted out, holding the leather straps tied to her machine as she stood and spun a slideshock around her head.

This is good, she thought. This is what I’m here for. This is why Angel made me live!

Makemelive, that voice said.

Lenora nodded. Soon.

TWO HOURS AFTER leaving camp, Lenora heard a rumbling sound from above and behind. She turned in her seat, thinking, It’s them! Most Krotes were looking back, weapons drawn, ready for battle.

Lenora saw the dozen shadows dipping from above, silhouetted against the death moon to the north. No two shapes were alike. A few seemed huge, others were quite small. Wings waved, while some seemed to fly by more arcane means. On the back of every shape rode an upright figure, clasping on to leather reins or waving a weapon around their head when they saw the stain of the Krote army beneath them.

The shade at Conbarma had been busy. Lenora had seen it take five times as long to make a flying machine than a walker.

She had left orders for the second wave to bypass Noreela City and head for the wilder places to the south, taking towns, villages and farmsteads wherever they discovered them still occupied. Once the city had fallen, their two forces would combine and head for New Shanti, where they expected to fight their fiercest battle.

“For a moment there…” Ducianne said. She had ridden her machine alongside Lenora’s, sitting upright and still clasping a small crossbow in one hand.

“Scared?” Lenora asked. Her friend glanced at her and looked away again, and Lenora laughed. “I’m fucking with you, Ducianne. For a heartbeat, I thought it was them as well.”

“But what a sight,” her friend said. “I’ve seen hawks flying overhead a thousand times, but never anything like that. Never anything sostrange. ”

“Everything’s strange now,” Lenora said.

Ducianne rode beside her for a while, staring after the shadows fading into the distance. The Krotes on the ground were riding hard and fast; those that had just passed overhead must have been flying at twice the speed of any hawk.

“We’ll be at Noreela City in a few hours,” Lenora said.

Ducianne smiled. “Then the fun begins!”

“I’m the first in.”

“Of course, Mistress,” Ducianne said, but Lenora saw the hint of disappointment in her friend’s eyes.

“Ducianne? You had Long Marrakash.” She nudged the Duke’s head with her foot. She had speared it on a metallic horn on her machine’s back, positioned so that it looked forward toward what they had come to destroy.

Ducianne nodded.

“Noreela City is five times the size of Long Marrakash. There’s plenty for us all. But I’m the first in, Ducianne. I’ve been here before, and I have my own forms of revenge to find in this war.”

“In the city?”

“That’s where it begins,” Lenora said. And then it rolls on, and on. She imagined her route south from the city to New Shanti, where they would kill some Shantasi, then west to Robenna. The time she had there would be long and wonderful. Ducianne had sliced off the Duke’s head slowly so that he knew exactly what was happening. Lenora imagined doing the same to a whole village.

“By the Black, this is a fine time,” she said, but Ducianne had already steered away.

THE HILLS TO the north of Noreela City were high, offering a fine vantage across the capital. And there was much to see. The city was ablaze with contained fires and lamps, its inhabitants doing their best to see away the dark and live out a normal day. The sky above the city was bright, and there was no sign of the flying machines that Lenora knew were there, waiting.

It must have been such a temptation. The city shone like a jewel in the land, a huge place beginning in foothills to the east and ending in a long, flat plain to the west. South of Noreela City were the Widow’s Peaks, though they were too far away to see from here. The flood of firelight seemed to make the land around the city darker than ever before.

Lenora gave her orders, then rode down the hillside on her machine, a dozen Krotes following close behind. The rest of her force would wait for several minutes before commencing their own march down the slopes toward the city walls. By then, Lenora would already be fighting in the streets. More symbolism, which Lenora was growing to like: thirteen Krotes, challenging the whole of Noreela City. And the thousand machines that followed would make the defenders’ hearts sink with dread.

The anticipation of the violence to come thrilled her. She hoped that they faced a real fight here, something more involved than the skirmish at Conbarma and the minor clashes they had fought between then and now. She was a warrior who welcomed a fight, but it was more than that setting her muscles aflame and her heart racing: for the first time, this really felt like Noreela. She was riding against the largest city in the land with the Duke’s head speared on the front of her machine, and she knew that the only outcome could be victory. Right now, it was the process of winning that excited her.