She Wolves and the Son of Nine Dragons – Part 3

Splinters flew from the table top as another volley of musket fire struck home. Honour swore reflexively, her mouth twisted into a scowl and Dokor hunched down closer to the bare earth floor, hiding his large body as best he could behind the single piece of furniture.

“It appears our surrender has become moot,” observed Matthias wryly. “I hope everyone has made their peace with Morrow.” The two women cast him stern glances, their eyes slitted in disapproval of his levity.

“Look,” said Viridian. “If all they want is money, why don’t we pay them and have done with it?”

“All they wanted was money, but it’s gone beyond that now!” said Matthias. “Now it’s about pride and honour.”

“What pride can corrupt dogs have?” spat Honour, her tense hands gripping the hilt of her sword. She seemed to be frustrated rather than frightened, as though having to hide for her own safety were a burden. Matthias was reminded of the kinds of young knights who get themselves killed chasing vainglorious victories; “all heart and no scars” as veterans say.

“Your attitude doesn’t help us. You humiliated their man in full view of the street,” said Matthias. “They will probably kill us simply to reassure the populace of the power of the greencoats.”

“Heavy handed,” muttered Viridian, as the sound of breeches being locked echoed across the pie shop; the musketmen were preparing to fire again.

“Order, not justice,” answered the Warlock. He seemed about to say more when he noticed a fine cloud of plaster dust fall from the ceiling. Cocking his head, he listened. There was a dull, distant thud and more plaster dust fell.

“The lamps are shaking,” observed Honour, looking up. For his part, Dokor placed the palm of his hand onto the floor, feeling the vibrations as the thuds continued. He sniffed the air and then looked out the windows along the south wall of the pie shop, as if expecting to see something.

“Something large approaches from the south,” declared the Ogrun simply, taking a better grip upon his warcleaver.

“The Green Knight,” said Matthias, shaking his head wearily.

“Green Knight…?” asked Viridian.

Before Matthias could answer, there was a loud hissing sound in the street beyond the south wall. Two massive cast iron feet could be seen through the windows, as well as a new cluster of greencoated figures. There was a moment of silence and looking over the lip of the upturned table, they could see that the musketeers were at the ready, awaiting only the signal to fire.

“We must go now…!” said Matthias, but his words were all but consumed by the sound of the south wall and ceiling being torn asunder. Support beams creaked and cracked; masonry erupted in an explosion plaster and debris. Bricks shattered like glass. In the midst of the destruction, a massive, iron figure shouldered its way through the pie shop wall. Cogs and gears larger than a person’s head, turned and ground, as forge-black, metal fists struck again and again at the walls. Eyes of green glass stared out from its head, which seemed like the helmet of an armoured giant. Steam hissed from its boiler-plate body, on which was painted a device in emerald green; a knight’s shield.

“Morrow preserve us,” whispered Honour, as the steamjack known and feared throughout the Five Fingers as the ‘Green Knight’ continued to pound its way through the shop wall, threatening to demolish the building as it did so. The ceiling’s support beams, foot thick pylons of solid hardwood, creaked ominously as the ‘jack’s assaults began to take their toll.

“That roof’s gonna go!” shouted Viridian over the thunderous noise.

“So are we!” declared Honour.

She nodded an unspoken instruction to Dokor, who hefted the upturned table onto his shoulder. With a bellowing battle-cry, he charged towards the musketmen on the stairs, using the table like a shield. Taken aback by the suddenness of the assault, two of the musketeers failed to even fire their weapons before the table crashed down upon their heads. Coming from close at Dokor’s side, Honour used the table like a boarding ramp, running across it to reach the two other musketeers on the higher steps. Her armoured boots landed on a step between the two men and she laid about with her long blade. The first rifleman fell without firing, but the second managed to get a shot away. To his horror, the musket ball ricocheted off the shoulder plate of Honour’s armour and embedded itself in the wall. Honour grunted at the pain of the impact and then her sword bit deep into the man’s neck. He fell dead and his musket clattered over the stair rail to the floor of the restaurant.

“Shall we?” offered Honour, gesturing to the door like an usher or a footman standing by his carriage. Viridian and Matthias dashed for the stairs, squeezing past Dokor. On the top of the step, Matthias paused to survey Honour and Dokor’s handiwork.

“Impressive,” he said with a nod and a smile. Honour smiled back with ferocious joy.

The Green Knight half fell into the pie shop’s main serving room with a dusty crash as it finally smashed a hole large enough for its cast iron bulk. It’s gears rattled loudly as it turned at the waist to face the fleeing fugitives. Then it paused. Matthias and Viridian dashed out the door just as a slender, green-coated man clambered over the rubble of the hole left by the Green Knight. He reached the floor of the pie shop in time to see Honour exit through the door.

“Get them,” he shouted at the steamjack, which hissed and rattled back into motion. With a belch of coal smoke from its exhaust, the Green Knight tossed the broken remnants of the pie shop’s furniture aside and charged towards the fleeing Dokor. As he ran up the stairs, the ogrun warrior tore off one of the upturned table’s legs and threw it at the steamjack’s operator. His aim was askew however, and his makeshift projectile only bounced harmlessly off the girder’s of the Knight’s right arm. Then he was out the door, into the midday light.

----

Captain Horace Fauxall, commandant of the watch, was pleased to see the fourth fugitive emerge from the pie shop. The ogrun came to a halt next to the other criminals, who stood still in the street, like timid deer. Between himself and the fugitives was the entire of his command, fully one quarter of the greencoats’ total strength. Most were armed only with the brass-bound batons that were the standard issue amongst the Five Fingers watch, but some held swords or spears and at least a dozen carried pistols. It was clearly overkill, turning out so many men at arms for only four lawbreakers, but Horace understood well the integral relationship between power and the appearance of power. Street fights between rival gangs were one thing, openly beating one of his watchmen was another thing all together. The Captain wanted to make sure that everyone in the district understood who was in charge. The gunmage Matthias Warlock had skirted around insolence and lawlessness for a long time. Now it seemed he had gathered himself a crew and was prepared to flout the greencoats’ authority openly. Horace would not tolerate it!

Behind the emerging ogrun the walls of the pie shop began to groan and spit pieces of brick. Horace cast a wary eye upward as he noticed cracks extending from the pie shop at the building’s base all the way to the top floor, three storey’s above the street. Like so many steamjacks, the Green Knight was a simple machine, powerful but not given to sophistication. It needed to be kept on a short leash or else it could easily run amok. Horace turned to his sergeant of the watch, who was standing beside him.

“Tomask needs to call that bloody thing off,” said Horace. “Where is the little bleeder?”

“In there,” replied the sergeant, horrified, as the pie shop building began to topple into the intersection. The ground shook and a vast cloud of rubble and debris cascaded onto the cobbles of the street. Horace tried to shout a warning to his men but was knocked flat by a piece brick that struck him in the chest. Dazed, he watched the dust blow over him like a dirty pink fog. Vaguely, he thought that there was something he should be concerned with but he couldn’t remember what. The important thing danced like a will-o-the-wisp at the edge of his mind. Whenever he tried to grasp it, it flitted away, teasing him. In spite of this though, he felt warm and quite restful. He lay for some time, enjoying the peaceful silence

Horace’s restfulness was disturbed by the face of his sergeant, which appeared, blood-streaked and dirty, in his view. The sergeant seemed very worried about something. Then another face appeared; it was Rector Habrann, priest of Ascendant Solovin. The Rector was saying something that Horace could not hear. Then he felt a hand grip him under his head and he realised that his hair was wet. He wondered vaguely if he had fallen in a puddle. The Rector’s mouth continued to move and as it did so, Horace’s hearing began to return. At first it was only the priest’s words, beginning as a far off whisper and then growing in tone and timbre till the rich syllables of the healing prayer washed through him. Then gradually came other sounds, such as the occasional rattle of settling masonry, intermingled with pained groans and moans. Last of all came the panicked calls of his men, rushing to see to their wounded. As his sergeant and the Rector levered him upright, Horace finally grasped the will-o-the-wisp. Sitting up he could see the carnage that the collapsing building had wrought.

“Your head is healed,” said Rector Habrann in his gentle voice. “But you still have other wounds.”

Captain Horace shrugged off the priest’s hand and made to stand up, but he was struck breathless by a savage pain in his chest. His head swam dizzily.

“You have three broken ribs,” explained the Rector apologetically. “It’s a good thing that you were wearing your chain shirt, or the brick which struck you would surely have killed you.”

Horace absorbed the man’s words as he looked about, seeing easily half of his men wounded or worse. Tempers were frayed, several of his men bickered even as the dying needed aid. Fury like a blossom of red hot blades bloomed in Horace’s heart. He fixed his sergeant with a glare.

“The Warlock’s mob?” he asked in a growl equal parts pain and anger.

“Escaped, we think,” said the sergeant with a shake of the head.

“Send a runner,” began the Captain, then he stopped as a fit of agonised coughing shook his body. He swallowed painfully and regained control of his battered body. “Send a runner; close the bridges and tell the Commander. Get every spare ‘coat over here. They’re going to go to ground somewhere! We want to keep them in the district and we want a ratter down every hole they could hide in. We’ll flush the bastards out and when we do I’m going to tan their bloody hides for a new cloak!”

The sergeant dashed off, certain that the Captain meant every word. As the man rushed off, the Captain cast another eye about, making a more thorough assessment of the damage. When he realised that he could not see the greencoats’ steamjack, he called to another of his men, sitting nearby; “Where’s the Green Knight?”

The man nodded to the pile of rubble where the pie shop had once been. “Buried under there,” he said. “Someone said the dust had put the boiler fire out, clogged the pipes!”

Horace wanted the steamjack back up and operational as soon as possible. “And where’s Tomask?” he asked.

“With the Knight, I guess!”

Excellent!

Thanks for the support.