Tim Lebbon - Dawn

Old wounds ached. Her shoulders and neck, stomach, right thigh and left ankle, her deformed scalp and pitted cheeks and left breast, all of them sang with the memories of how their scars had been formed. She thought back to the final few hours she had spent on Noreela three centuries before, and how vicious the fighting had been. Noreelans had been throwing themselves against the Krote army, driving it into the sea and using their own war machines to trample the Mages’ failing magic beneath their feet.

“Things change,” Lenora said into the wind. Her machine was running fast now, leaping down the hillside and sprinting for the long, open area that led to the city’s large north gate. The gate was shut, and there were signs that a series of defenses had been erected before the walls.

She drew a sword, strapped a crossbow to her left forearm, checked the weapons on her belt, the braces crossing her chest and the quivers tied across her back. “Good! Fight for your land, you cowards. Give me something to dream about in the future.”Something to dream about as I make my way to you, she thought, sending her words out and hoping they were heard.

She turned to check the Krotes charging with her. As instructed they were a hundred steps behind, driving their own machines hard to keep up. Some of their mounts gasped fire; others breathed ice. Blue sparks splashed from their rides’ feet where they connected with the land.

They closed on the city and Lenora began to make out the individual defenses. Several rows of sharpened stakes faced outward, their tips fresh and pale. There were trenches-perhaps filled with oil-and large rocks, and a few humps that might have been trenches fronted by earthen bunds. She hoped that there were militia in those holes. That would bring blood a few heartbeats closer to her sword.

A hail of arrows greeted her as her machine crashed over the first line of stakes. The sound of splintering timber was deafening. An arrow sliced across her shoulder, another stuck her hip and shattered on the knives sheathed there, and then the men who had fired them leapt from a trench and ran for the gates.

She rode them down, leaning sideways to swipe at one with her sword. The others fell beneath the machine’s legs.

The machine vaulted a trench which erupted into flames. Lenora closed her eyes against the heat and enjoyed the brief touch on her skin; it had been cold for so long that it felt like sunlight.

More arrows came and Lenora sent an order to her machine. It rose on its hind legs and presented its underbelly, and the arrows snapped and shattered there. She slipped from her mount’s back, darted between its legs and jumped into a trench filled with several terrified militia.

“Please,” one of them said, and Lenora laughed. By the time they gathered their wits, there were only two left standing, and Lenora dodged their clumsy attacks and felled them both. They were wallowing in their own guts as she climbed from the trench and mounted her ride once more.

She glanced back and saw the other dozen Krotes ride their machines through the wall of flames, and Lenora shrieked as she rode on, the cry beginning in the very heart of her.

Thisislife! she thought. This is what you missed, my daughter.

She stopped a hundred steps from the city wall. The fires lit the whole scene, yet something slipped over the wall and slicked to the ground, hunkering down against the ancient stone structure to blend with the background.

Shade? Lenora thought.

Guards of the gate peered at her from atop the high wall. They were petrified. She could instruct her machine to kill them and it would, but this was a symbolic moment that she could not let pass. She knew that the best way to defeat an enemy was to soften their minds before slitting their throats.

“I have something for you!” she called. “A final message from your Duke.” She stood on her machine’s back, tugged the Duke’s head from its mount and held it up by the hair. “He says he’s sorry, he’s been busy fucking and taking drugs in Long Marrakash, but now he’s back and so you have nothing to fear. Do you hear me, Noreela?”

A flight of arrows came her way, and her Krotes launched several fireballs from their machines. Something flared, someone screamed and the day was growing brighter with every beat of her heart.

A shadow shifted away from the city wall and crossed the ground toward Lenora. She frowned, disturbed, but she could show no fear.

“So who wants him?” she called. Silence was her response. “Here’s a deal: Whoever catches the Duke, I’ll kill quickly.” She leaned back and prepared to throw the head toward the city wall.

The shadow rose before her, and she knew it for sure. Shade! The Mages had been here already…and they left something behind. It smothered the firelight for a few heartbeats, then passed around and through her, cold as the ice of Dana’Man, redolent of an emptiness she never imagined could exist.

Lenora gasped and swayed, and the shade disappeared behind her machine.

For a moment I was nothing…

Something shifted in her hand. The Duke’s eyes had opened wide and his mouth was working, dry tongue protruding between lips like a fattened grub. His eyes turned to her and held her gaze.

She threw the head as far as she could.

What is this?

It sailed through the air, spinning toward the city wall.

Nobody caught the head. It disappeared over the wall, and a few seconds later screams rose from beyond.

She rode her machine toward the city gate. Arrows and bolts zipped down from left and right, liquid flame poured from above as they tipped burning oil, but her Krotes protected her. The machines launched a blistering attack on the defenders with discs and bolts, fireballs and something less fiery, but more destructive. One of them leapt onto the wall and hung there like a spider, its rider standing on its head and firing arrows up at the Noreelans. The machine plucked several militia from the wall and dropped them into their own burning oil.

From above came the sudden screams of diving machines. Shadows emerged from the glare over the city and rained fire and metal across its rooftops. Some of them attacked the defenders inside the north wall, while more explosions and screams sounded from deeper within the city. Good, Lenora thought. Confusion for everyone.

She reached the gate. Her machine reared up and battered the thick wood with its front legs. Huge splinters erupted outward, and soon she could hear the massive gate beginning to crack and groan.

In the reveals to either side, shutters snapped open and bowmen began firing. Lenora ducked and shot a crossbow to her left, hearing a man groan as he fell. She spun right, swinging her slideshock and crunching the skull of the Noreelan on that side. She had an arrow through the flesh of her right arm, just above the elbow. She decided to leave it there; it would drive even more terror into her victims.

The gate cracked and fell, and her machine drove forward over its remains. She caught a brief glimpse of two men disappearing beneath the machine, flailing uselessly as its feet crushed them, and she paused for a heartbeat to assess the situation: before her was a wide road leading into Noreela City, barricaded several hundred steps along its length; to her left an alley barely wide enough for her machine, and just within its shadows lay the Duke’s head, chewing air.

She turned right and rode, knowing that she would be met with a hail of arrows. She had to get away from the gate, leaving room to allow more Krotes to enter. And she wanted to spread her own destruction deep into the heart of the city.

I’m here, she thought. I’m in Noreela’s capital!

She would circle around, back onto the wide road that led toward the city center, and attack the barricade from behind. Open up the main artery and watch the city begin to bleed to death.