Tim Lebbon - Dawn

Oh bleeding, she thought. There’ll be plenty of that. Plenty for us all. And again, that memory of the Mages’ lake of blood came to her, twisting the knife of uncertainty in her heart one more time.

A man jumped from a building and landed on the back of her machine. His sheer stupidity and bravery surprised her for a second, and he swung a heavy axe at her head. She ducked just in time, sprawled on her side and sent a message to her machine to stop. The sudden halt tipped the man forward, and he slid from the machine’s back and became snagged on two of its limbs.

“You’re a brave one!” Lenora shouted.

“You Mages can’t win,” he said.

“You’re not even militia.”

“It’s the normal people of Noreela who’ll beat you, just like before.”

The man was still trying to rise, hefting the axe in one hand and using the other to claw his way back up the side of the machine. He saw something-the machine’s eyes, its mouth?-and froze for a heartbeat in shock. Lenora cleaved his skull in two and kicked him to the ground.

She urged the machine on, turning left into a space between buildings. They rose two stories on either side, and the machine shattered balconies and smashed windows as it went. Whenever Lenora saw a pale face at a window she fired at it with a bolt or throwing star.

The alley opened into a courtyard with a fountain at its center and a group of militia trying to barricade themselves in. Sport, Lenora thought as she halted the machine and jumped from its back.

There were five militia, all men. “Any of you ever fought a woman?” she asked. They stared at her, utterly terrified, not one of them going for his sword. “I bet you have,” she muttered. “After you’ve fucked, I bet you beat them, just to make you feel more like men.”

One of them went for a knife and Lenora jumped forward, opening his chest with her sword.

Something whispered to her left and she turned, but there was no one there. Is that you? she thought.

Two men came at her but they were slow and scared. She moved back from their first sword swings then stepped into their killing circles, taking one with a knife in the eye and pulling the other close, smiling at him, dipping her head and severing the main artery in his throat with one bite. His blood tasted weak.

Is this the living I missed? a voice said. Lenora dropped the man and turned, seeing something flit across her vision as though it existed on the surface of her eyes. She tried to follow but a man ran into her, trying to knock her from her feet. She stumbled and turned, letting him fall then kneeling astride him. As she brought her sword down with both hands she thought she saw something reflected in its blade: a face, young and innocent and so familiar. She twisted the sword mid-swing and struck the man with the flat side. He cried out, nose burst and cheekbones crushed. Lenora looked past her machine, wondering where the vision had gone.

“Is that you?” she asked out loud, and the loaded silence seemed answer enough.

The man beneath her whined and Lenora pushed her sword into his chest.

The final militia man came at her, swinging a heavy mace on a long chain, and she sent a thought to her machine. A limb unfolded from its body and tripped the man, sending him sprawling onto the spiked ball of his own weapon. He screamed, tried to stand, and the machine planted one huge foot on his head.

“Not fair,” he said.

“Fair?” Lenora told her machine to press down.

The courtyard was silent now, but she could hear the sounds of conflict from all around. A building falling, a flying machine expelling fire, a woman screaming, a machine whistling as it ejected a spurt of steam or gas at some unsuspecting enemy. Keen to rejoin the fray, she took an ear from one of the dead, then climbed onto the back of her mount. Her fury was rich, her mouth rank with sour blood, her sword wet with it…and still her unborn daughter was here, being with her and existing within her.“Just a few more days!” Lenora pleaded.

A shadow seeped into the courtyard over one of the makeshift barricades. It passed over and through the five dead men and then left as quickly as it had come, paying Lenora no heed.

The men began to rise. The one with the crushed head stumbled in a continuous tight circle, but the others picked up their weapons and climbed the barricades at the entrances to the courtyard, staring about wide-eyed. One of them saw Lenora and moved on, seeking different prey.

Lenora now knew for sure where the shade had come from, and who had brought it. “By the Black, how can we lose?”

As she rode her machine from the courtyard, sensing several terrified observers watching from higher windows, that voice started in her head once more, and for the first time Lenora heard something other than anger and neglect in its tones.

What is it that you wish for me? How can my unknown life be precious? the voice of her daughter said, and then as it dissolved back into the darkness of her deep subconscious, it left one parting comment: This is not living.

THE FIGHT EXPANDED, intensified and rolled on, and a thousand Krotes took their fill of blood. Soon after smashing her way through Noreela City’s northern gates Lenora stopped thinking of it as the battle she had been hoping for; a battle was when two sides were fighting. This was a slaughter.

The level twilight made time almost impossible to judge. It could have lasted a few hours, or maybe it was a day. Much of the city lay in darkness where inhabitants had extinguished lanterns, but Lenora could smell burnt oil on the air. She and her Krotes lit up these areas, balls of fire cruising the streets and narrow alleys. Timber buildings provided excellent fuel, and Lenora’s machine extended a long, thin limb from its underside and pumped liquid fire through windows, doors and cracks in walls. The buildings’ windows lit up like the eyes of giants surprised awake, and soon the flames moved into their thatched or boarded roofs, heating stone tiles until they exploded, crawling into neighboring properties and catching them unawares. Fires spread as quickly as the killing. They became the signature of places the Krotes had already visited.

Many people fought, and Lenora was glad for that, but they were mostly untrained and resigned to defeat. Few of them came at her with anger or rage in their eyes, fewer still with hope. They blinked uselessly as they died on her sword.

Her machine took its toll of Noreelans. Lenora liked to kill them herself, but on occasion she was rushed by a dozen or more, and she took equal pleasure in guiding her mount through its own killing moves. It could only perform minimally on its own: it was her thoughts, her ideas, her action that drove it. Limbs flicked out and whipped across the chests of attackers. It kicked with one of its legs, spat fist-sized knots of molten stone that left smoking trails in the air, and vents along its sides opened to emit hails of razor discs, thudding into stone, wood and flesh alike. Some people went down fighting the machine, perhaps lost in the belief that this could only be a terrible nightmare. Others turned to flee, and these Lenora gave a slower death.

Her machine took occasional chunks of timber from collapsing buildings or stone from the ground and imbibed it, replenishing itself with its strange magic. It throbbed beneath her, and a bluish light bathed its legs for a few heartbeats at a time. Occasionally two of its eyes turned up to look at her, and though she felt their gaze she ignored it. They’re from him, she thought. From that farm boy. Long gone now.

In one shop window, Lenora saw the reflection of a small girl, her face pale and eyes devoid of emotion. Lenora smashed the window with her slideshock and spun around, but there was only a dead tree standing behind her. She rode on and passed a fountain, saw that same girl beneath its surface, mouth hanging open as if in mid-scream. She turned away, thinking, That can’t be you.